Józef

Tischner

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

Józef

Tischner

Edited by

Jarosław Jagiełło

Ignatianum University Press

Krakow 2020

© Copyright by Akademia Ignatianum w Krakowie, 2020

Texts by Józef Tischner

Copyright © by Kazimierz Tischner & Marian Tischner

Published by the arrangement with the “Znak Social Publishing Institute”

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

Reviewers

Tadeusz Gadacz

Elżbieta Paczkowska–Łagowska

Supervising editor

Roman Małecki

Proofreading

Aeddan Shaw

Lesław Sławiński

Typesetting

Lesław Sławiński

Cover design

PHOTO DESIGN – Lesław Sławiński

ISBN  978-83-7614-465-8

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I. JÓZEF TISCHNER: PERSON AND WORK

Mirosław Pawliszyn

University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn

1. BIOGRAPHY

I was born in Stary Sącz on 12 March 1931. My father Józef and my mother Weronika, née Chowaniec, taught school in Łopuszna, Nowy Targ County. In 1937 I began attending primary school. At the beginning of the war we were transferred first to Chabówka, then to Raba Wyżna, and finally, in 1942, to Rogoźnik, Nowy Targ County. I attended the primary school first in Raba Wyżna, then in Rogoźnik, Czarny Dunajec and Nowy Targ. At the same time, I clandestinely covered the curriculum of the first grade of middle school, so that after the national liberation I could be promoted to the 2nd grade of the middle school in Nowy Targ. It was there that I first finished middle school, and then, in 1949, a comprehensive secondary school. In the same year I began my studies at the Faculty of Law at the Jagiellonian University.

My parents still work as teachers, and since the national liberation they have been living along with my brother Kazimierz in Łopuszna; my other brother, Marian, is attending a comprehensive secondary school in Nowy Targ.¹

The above words were penned by Józef Tischner as he wrote about his early years in a letter of application to the Metropolitan Seminary in Krakow. It was 19 June 1950; the author had already left a difficult childhood behind him but an even more challenging period of adolescence lay ahead of him. When he was thirteen, he began keeping a journal,² thanks to which we can learn that Łopuszna, which came to be so intrinsically associated with him years later, only came third as his family’s abode. His fondest memories from this period were his trips to Stary Sącz and Jurgów. It was there that he was exposed to the first impressions of the outside world, either seen from a train window or a horse-drawn wagon. However, his carefree childhood was brought to an end by the Second World War. A passage in his journal reads: “Suddenly the war broke out, but I didn’t know what it meant. We were in Łopuszna then and great fear descended; everyone fled to the mountains, and so we took shelter there as well, but it was hard to tell who we were hiding from.”³ Via Raba Wyżna, the whole family reached Rogoźnik, from where the young Józef would later travel to Nowy Targ to continue his school education. Around that time, an event took place which arguably only bore fruit years later, in his texts about the motherland and the ongoing disputes in Poland. “Now, unlike the previous year, we did not have an easy time of it on our way; we were accosted by some children from Kowaniec, who were pelting us with stones. It was very mean of the Kowaniec boys; after all both us and them were Polish, so how could a scuffle break out between Poles?”⁴

The early years of Tischner’s life as described in his notes contain another important element which serves as meaningful proof of his maturity and honesty. In an entry dated 3 February 1946, Tischner writes that on the occasion of his mother’s name day it was fitting that some “solemn words”⁵ were said, and a present bought. But “father said he could not give me any cash until I settled the accounts; he thinks I’m blowing the money on something. He couldn’t be more mistaken.”⁶ Trivial as it might seem, not only does this event testify to the teenage boy’s sensitivity, but above all, it shows someone who is entirely independent in his thinking and capable of the sensible perception of the world. These characteristics were to come to the fore in full force once Tischner became a public figure.

The development of his personality was also influenced by the events in the turbulent surroundings of the day. This can be clearly seen in an entry of 22 February 1947, which mentions the death of Józef Kuraś, an Armia Krajowa (Home Army) and Bataliony Chłopskie (Peasant Battalions) soldier whose nom de guerre was “Fire.” He had died on that day, after an attempted suicide, having been betrayed by his former brothers in arms. This fact inspired some serious reflection in Tischner. “It is clear that neither England nor America are thinking of actively intervening on Poland’s behalf, and without substantial assistance from the outside, the guerrilla forces cannot operate. Anders is neither thinking of such intervention, nor can he support it; besides, both in ours and our allies’ eyes he appears to have brought discredit upon himself.”⁷ The following passage, which is related to the above, brings a very important thought: “At any rate, now is the time for work, not battles, as they can benefit Poland in no way.”⁸ One can conjecture that, years later, such a reflection was to give rise to Tischner’s own and original philosophy of work. Another significant thread that also sheds some light on his budding personality can be found in the note dated 26 March 1947. In it, the author takes a closer look at himself: “It seems to me that I am striving for too much and reaching too high, that I am pushing my spark among the stars of great people, leaders of the nation, while in the process I am becoming oblivious to reality, the ordinary, intermediate level that I should pass through.”⁹ He goes on to openly note that he thinks quite highly of himself, he trusts in his talent and abilities. But it does not end there: he receives manifold praise, and those around him regard him with recognition and admiration. This is not an easy experience for him and he is far from falling into self-admiration, even though he wonders why “he doesn’t shut his ears to these words or quench the budding pride in his heart.”¹⁰ This remarkable entry concludes with a solemn pledge which he makes to himself: “I therefore determine, even though I have made such resolutions in my heart of hearts a couple of times, to get down to work, and organic work for that matter, while nipping any pride and exaggeration in the bud! So help me God!”¹¹

It is worth drawing attention to yet another memory which can be seen as a crowning one in his childhood, this time dated 28 March 1947. It is connected with a retreat-related confession during which a confessor was reported to have said that “he himself did not know how much he or the Church could expect from me. He said that I was supposed to commendably carry out my school mission. I was stunned by this. I and some mission. Later on, I kept meditating upon his words at the altar.”¹²

Tischner’s adolescent years were filled with budding emotion and feelings. Evidently, it was a period in which this young man engaged in a battle with himself, was maturing inwardly and subjecting the nagging dilemmas to the judgement of reason. His first true philosophical question was beginning to take shape and the inspiration had been provided by a schoolmate, who addressed the question of “whether a feeling could be subordinated to will” in an essay.¹³ The question of the meaning of life came to be voiced as well, and was resolved with the following statement: “Got it! Serve God! Serve the mother country for the good of the people! So I am supposed to live for my fellow beings and sacrifice myself for them.”¹⁴

This brief sketch of the young Józef Tischner, intended to highlight the feelings and reflections that were to mould the later mature thinker and avid priest, may be concluded with another entry dated 16 November 1947. It bears the pronounced hallmark of a budding philosopher—on the one hand displaying thoughtful criticism, while on the other, an already marked inclination towards a philosophy of drama:

Someone—and maybe when I was a youth—developed in me some strangely critical feelings that won’t even stop at religion. Sometimes I am overcome by moments, although short ones, when I ask whether God exists. When I ponder nature, the universe, the surroundings, I can see Him at every turn, but in human life I find it hard to discern Him. In it, I can only see negation of His existence.¹⁵

And then he makes an open declaration, framing a kind of manifesto: “So I am supposed to be a philosopher. I should rather think that I will heavily rely on literature; I will be a man of letters/philosopher.”¹⁶

The manner in which the thought of becoming a priest was crystallised in Tischner’s mind is a different issue, and one which merits a more thorough analysis. His Journals point to several crucial threads. A religious upbringing as well as the presence of catechists in his life are of significant relevance to his future path in life. Apparently, he wanted to be a righteous man who adhered to some ethical standards, which comes to be expressed in the moral dilemmas ringing in his heart and his attitude to his kith and kin. At the same time, he wasn’t prepared to settle for simple solutions or recommendations. That is one of the reasons why he views Christianity, and more specifically Catholicism, as a religion that is indispensable to his mother country’s development, yet he does not hesitate to state that the Church “is to accept the Marxist way of social reform, even though it might toss in the foundation of the Greatest Commandment, and negate the revolution and other a-Christian elements.”¹⁷ Against this background, the thought of the priesthood took shape with great difficulty; it was not an effect of a natural course of things, and even seems to go against the grain of his surrounding influences. He writes: “I often ask myself what is the thing that makes me stick with Catholicism. For a long time, I wasn’t able to find the answer. And it was for a very long time. Now I have come to the conclusion that there is something to this Catholicism.”¹⁸ It is hard to find Tischner’s unambiguous declaration of a choice of a path in life in the Journals, especially because he does not know “whether a priest is more of a man of action and fight, or a coward running away from life realism and hiding in metaphysics.”¹⁹ He was clearly fighting an internal battle, one which came to be poignantly expressed in a passage of 28 May 1949, which reads as follows: “I would like to be elected, and not left to be called upon. I surrender myself to your will, my Lord. I am obedient to every voice that comes from There;”²⁰ and another vehement one: “I hate the clergy for the evil that is rearing its ugly head among their ranks, but I respect the upper echelons of authority. I hate the psychosis rampant among the seminarians. I hate a lot of things from the past of the Church, but I believe in the Gospel, the Holy Scriptures and God. But above all I believe in Love!”²¹

Still, Tischner decided to begin his studies at the Krakow Seminary. This place, which was “repulsive in its appearance, preconciliar, caustic and cold—hard to believe that anyone could stand being there,”²² allowed him to meet both some of his peers and important lecturers who supported him on the path to spiritual and intellectual development. Of particular note here were such names as Stanisław Stomma, Adam Vetulani, as well as Aleksy Klawek, Kazimierz Kłósak, Marian Michalski, Ignacy Różycki and Jan Pietraszko, who “was never a scientist, but could keep many enraptured by his evangelical thinking and great sensitivity to human dignity,”²³ and last but not least—Karol Wojtyła, who had only just begun his lectures on social ethics for seminarians. Tischner’s early interest in philosophy became more systematised when, as a clerical student, he began attending Rev. Kłósak’s philosophy seminar. It was here that he became acquainted with Cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier (1851–1926), a French philosopher and theologian, who not only was a representative of neo-Thomism, but—more importantly for further development of Tischner’s thought—an advocate of the confrontation of this movement with exact sciences and Immanuel Kant’s philosophy. On 26 June 1955, along with fifteen other deacons, Józef Tischner graduated from the seminary and was ordained a priest.

As a result of the difficulties made by state authorities in relation with Tischner being accepted for a position of a parish curate, and with support from Rev. Kłósak, he was directed to continue studies in philosophy at the Academy of Catholic Theology in Warsaw. Wojciech Bonowicz, his biographer, cites a recollection of one of the students, which shows the already significant magnitude of Tischner’s personality.

Without doubt, he was a top student, but he was not primus inter pares. We all felt he had quite an edge over us, and that was not just an intellectual edge... I remember one situation. We were having an exam in the afternoon and like a flock of sheep we arrived as early as possible to enter our names on the list in top positions. But Józef showed up just before 2 p.m. and so he was the eighth or the ninth on the list. He came up to the list, tore it down, then took out a new piece of paper, pinned it up and wrote: Rev. Józef Tischner. He stepped aside and was standing there looking at us, meekly and without the slightest protest, come and sign our names underneath his.²⁴

The years spent at the Academy of Catholic Theology were dedicated to an in-depth study of contemporary Thomist thought (e.g. Étienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain), phenomenology and existentialism, as well as logic (as Tischner sought inspiration from lectures at the University of Warsaw) and psychology, the lectures being given by Kazimierz Dąbrowski. As a result of political turbulence caused by the tragic events of June 1956 in Poznań, as well as the growing repression of the Church by the communist authorities, his Warsaw studies were discontinued and Tischner returned to southern Poland to take up the position of catechist in the Chrzanów parish. In the same year he managed to resume his studies, but this time at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. On 19 April 1963 a graduation ceremony for his doctoral dissertation entitled The Transcendental “I” in Edmund Husserl’s Philosophy, written under the supervision of Roman Ingarden, took place.

Around that time Józef Tischner was becoming an increasingly renowned and highly valued preacher. He began delivering sermons at St Anna’s Church; the sermons were characterised by a significant change. “A change of attitude—a gradual departure from the model of speaking to someone and a shift towards speaking with someone, opening up to that which the listener brings”²⁵—was something that was not only to result in later studies on Paul Ricoeur’s thought, but was above all to shape his thinking about religion, or, better yet, man’s religiousness. It is not something that is unearthed in man’s nature, nor a remedy for human ills, but rather something that has a chance to appear as a result of a bond, reciprocity. Therefore, the character of religiousness is not constrained, the conclusion being that it cannot be a result of fear of condemnation. Years later, pursuing these original intuitions would come to be expressed in Tischner’s meditations on Abraham.

There is another important fact in his life that merits a mention at this point. His stay in Krakow, and especially his pursuit of preaching and philosophy, and drive to go deeper and deeper into the essence of Christianity, bore some fruits in the form of collaboration with the circles of Znak and Tygodnik Powszechny. Significantly, his first text to be published was turned down by the editorial board. Therefore, Tischner’s first article appeared in the January issue of Więź in 1960; it was an attempt at presenting the results of a survey conducted among the Chrzanów parishioners. The conclusion included words that were to reappear many a time in Tischner’s future work. “There may be identical arguments for the existence of God. But there are no two identical paths leading to the recognition of this existence. And no language speaking about types and ordering things according to similarities should obscure this primal individuality.”²⁶

The years which followed were filled with pastoral and academic work. Around that time, Tischner devoted a lot of attention to studies of the works of Martin Heidegger, whose thought would in the future influence his own philosophy. In the second half of the 1960s he moved to Leuven to work at the Husserl Archives. Upon his return he began working on his habilitation dissertation which earned him the title in 1974. His most significant analyses concentrated around the development of the concept of the axiological “I” and around something that might be termed a treatise on the condition of contemporary philosophy. It is noteworthy that the diagnosis he made stemmed precisely from his own philosophical concept, and was not hanging in the air, which made his efforts all the more praiseworthy. This period brought forth some particularly remarkable texts: The Decline of Thomist Christianity,²⁷Axiological Impressions,²⁸In Search of the Essence of Freedom.²⁹ Of particular note is also a thread which he pursued in parallel, concerned with the so-called philosophy of work, and introduced in Poland by Stanisław Brzozowski.³⁰ The polemics he undertook with Marxism and its conception of work was to bear fruit in the form of meaningful discussion of the ethics of solidarity some years later.

Following the historic events of August 1980, Tischner became involved with the “Solidarity” movement, the climax of his involvement being a homily preached to the union leaders on 18 October 1980 at the Wawel cathedral. One year later he made a guest appearance at the 1st National Convention of NSZZ “Solidarność” Delegates in Gdańsk. On the occasion he also preached a homily and the remarkable thing was that “the delegates decided to accept the sermon text as the official document of the Convention, because no other text captured the ethos of the Polish worker and work as lucidly as it did.”³¹ In 1982 he became the chaplain of the Podhale Inhabitants Association, which was related to the initiation of a series of Holy Masses celebrated for the mother country at the Mount Turbacz chapel every August.

And yet, in this hectic period he did not give up scholarly work. He co-created the Faculty of Philosophy at the Pontifical Academy of Theology (PAT), which became an independent research and teaching unit in 1981. Tischner became the faculty dean and as of 1985 he was an associate professor at the Academy. He refused to accept the position of rector of PAT, explaining that he wanted to continue both scientific and pastoral work. It should also be noted that along with Hans-Georg Gadamer and Krzysztof Michalski, he founded the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. Not only did this research center become a crucial element in the intellectual life of Austria’s capital city, but it still plays a role of an intermediary in the intellectual debate between Eastern and Western Europe. Its mission statement reads: “More than 25 years after the fall of the iron curtain this goal is still crucially important, because the old and the new borders between the East and the West still shape persuasions, attitudes and institutions.”³²

The year 1990 can be viewed as a symbolic one in Józef Tischner’s life. That year saw the publication of the first edition of The Philosophy of Drama, which appears to prominently feature in his lifework; the backdrop for this concept was the political and social change taking place in Poland, one on which the author took a robust stance and which some viewed as controversial. This could already be discerned in the first months of the political transformation, when in the wake of the presidential elections, the thinker mentioned the notion of homo sovieticus during a TV talk. This figure was one which he felt explained the condition of a society which had only just shaken off totalitarian rule. He was met with the harshest criticism when he expressed his sympathies connected with one side of the political scene occupied by the Freedom Union and the Liberal Democratic Congress. He also bemoaned the processes taking place in the Polish Church: the increasing fear of freedom, preaching an “ill gospel” from the church pulpit, using a divisive rather than integrative language; he engaged in a dispute with what he saw as growing integrism. His stance on such tendencies was explicitly negative, as a result of which he was viewed as persona non grata or even as a harmful figure.

In 1997 the first symptoms of a serious complaint appeared. The diagnosis soon turned out to be tragic. Ever since that moment he battled against laryngeal cancer. On 10 August 1997 he celebrated his last Holy Mass on Turbacz. The following years were filled with a dramatic struggle against the fatal disease. He died on 28 June 2000, two days after the 45th anniversary of his ordination.

Mirosław Pawliszyn

University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn

2. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EPOCH

It is well-nigh impossible to describe, in just a few pages yet in an exhaustive manner, the times which served as the backdrop for Rev. Józef Tischner’s life. Even though he lived for “only” 69 years, his lifetime was marked by extremely tempestuous years filled with radical and dramatic historical changes. What is more: a willing reader can easily find an abundance of specialist literature full of detailed data on facts, events and people who either triggered them or were influenced by them. And thus, for the sake of methodological fairness, it should be stressed that the following analysis by no means deserves to be treated as a comprehensive or fully faithful account of the spirit of those years. With these reservations in mind, as the task is undertaken, an explanation is due whereby account will be taken of those facts which in some specific way affected Tischner, or ones that he was not indifferent to, as well as those individuals that to a significant degree left an imprint on his life and achievements.

The years 1931–2000 which mark Józef Tischner’s lifetime can be divided into several periods with clear-cut turning points. The first one was obviously the Second World War, which was followed by a period where a totalitarian regime held sway in Poland—communism; then came the special time marked by the activity of the Independent Self-governing Labor Union “Solidarity” and the martial law; he lived the last eleven years of his life in a free Poland, witnessing the beginnings of democracy. These four periods will serve as landmarks in the description of the era in which Tischner lived.

Undoubtedly, the cruelties and atrocities of the Second World War were also present in Podhale. Of note are two wartime circumstances which informed the specific nature of the war in this region. The first one was the Germanisation campaign in the Nowy Targ county called “Goralenvolk.” It was connected with Wacław Krzeptowski, a native highlander and well-known peasant activist. To the amazement of the locals “he was the one to establish first contact with the new authorities a few weeks after Poland had been occupied by Wehrmacht. It may already have been then that he suggested that the highlanders be politically separated from the rest of the Polish nation.”¹ On 7 November 1939, as the representative of the highlanders, he met and greeted Hans Frank upon his entry into the city of Krakow; the latter paid a return visit to him five days later. “In an address delivered to the Podhale inhabitants, the governor stressed that ‘the government of the German Reich had always cared for the good of its minorities’ and that ‘the times of the persecution of the highlanders were over.’”² In June 1940, on the occasion of the census being taken, “the census papers, next to the Polish, Jewish and Ukrainian sections included a column headed ‘highlanders.’”³ Anyone who chose Polish or Jewish as their nationality was threatened with displacement. Tischner reminisces: “In all of our Podhale village, which was inhabited by highlanders alone, there was only one or maybe two who entered their names on the Goralenvolk list.”⁴ In 1941, the so-called Highlanders Committee was established, but its activity was strictly controlled by the Germans. In some places the German Kennkarte identity documents marked with the letter “G” (for the initial of the Goral ethnicity) were accepted by considerable numbers of inhabitants, which gave rise to some reaction on the part of the Polish underground resistance movement. Tischner himself mentions death of Franciszek Latocha, one of Krzeptowski’s associates. With the benefit of hindsight, it turned out that “during the Second World War the Goralenvolk accounted for the largest form of collaboration on the Polish territory. It struck a blow to the unity of the Polish society as it strove to tear one of the local cultural groups away from it.”⁵

The other story treats of Józef Kuraś (1915–1947), a Home Army and Peasant Battalion soldier. During the war, he wanted to avoid being deported to the German Reich and so he got a job as a forestry worker. He joined a local patrol of the Union of Armed Struggle, adopting the nom de guerre “Eagle.” In 1943 a striking event fraught with consequences took place: Kuraś shot two plain clothes police officers, suspecting that they were informants for the German military. In retaliation, Gestapo murdered his 73-year-old father, his wife and his 2-year-old son, as well as burning down his family house. Following this tragedy, Kuraś changed his nom de guerre to “Fire” and together with a group of trusted companions joined a partisan company of the Home Army. Historians note that as a result of the circumstances related to the guerrilla unit being surrounded by the Germans, who had been provoked by Kuraś himself, he was reported to have deserted, for which he got a death sentence. Then he made contact with the authorities of the People’s Party and in October the same year was sworn in as a commander of a firing squad. In 1944 a government representative in the Nowy Targ County ordered that the People’s Party suspend official contact with “Fire,” because his conflict with the Home Army had not been resolved. He was alleged to be collaborating with Soviet guerrillas, and more precisely with NKVD captain Lyudmila Gordiyenko, as well as having subordinated his people to a People’s Army unit. This collaboration was supposed to have helped him assault and rob Podhale and Pieniny inhabitants. “Fire” was killed in an ambush on 22 February 1947. Today, opinions about him still differ widely and are ambiguous. One of the Home Army soldiers, Julian Tomecki, whose nom de guerre was “Birch,” reminisces: “The activity engaged in by “Fire” was not so much the intentional and heroic fight for Polish and national goals, as the mindless and murderous action of a chancer. Even the most renowned murderer will forever be nothing but a murderer. No one can erase the stigma of a murderer, and criminal acts cannot be hidden behind the most expensive plaque in the holiest church.”⁶ However, Dr Maciej Korkuć, an employee of the Krakow branch office of the Institute of National Remembrance claims as follows: “As for “Fire’s” motivation, there is no doubt about that. He fought not for his own gain, but for independence and a free Poland. All his life he was dedicated to the people’s cause.”⁷ Tischner himself speaks well of “Fire,” which can be particularly seen on the pages recording his conversation with Adam Michnik and Jacek Żakowski: “He was a legend of all Podhale and my childhood;”⁸ further we read: “There may have been some cut-throats, but that is hard to avoid.”⁹

The post-war period was marked by communism, which was steadily growing in strength. Tischner was a keen observer of the ongoing processes and was to provide an accurate diagnosis of the effects caused by totalitarianism. Some facts affecting the maturing philosopher and priest are worth mentioning here. As historians acknowledge, the first postwar years did not see too many restrictions imposed on the Church. However, the situation changed radically in 1947, when the communists decided to organize a group of priests supportive of the authorities. The idea was introduced by Hilary Minc, a member of the Security Commission of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party, which was a section supervising the repression apparatus: he proposed “organizing among priests an initiative group which would not only declare loyalty, but also oppose the priests manifesting objection to the new order.”¹⁰ At first, forty five patriot priests—for that is how they were referred to—took part in a convention bringing together veteran organizations, which gave rise to the establishment of the Society of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy. In a public address, one of them “criticized the episcopate for not establishing permanent chaplaincy services for the Recovered Territories, and, as a sideswipe, the Vatican for doing harm to the interests of Poland. In conclusion, a servile cable was sent to Stalin.”¹¹ Tischner was very explicit in his judgement of the participants of the movement, stating that “surely they were already on the other side of the line of treason.”¹² This harsh judgement had some basis, because the issue of the patriot priests was connected with some other painful events at that time. Tischner explained: “The times left quite a depressing picture of our nation in my memory. That was mainly a picture of May Day rallies.”¹³ As communism appeared to be growing in strength, the persecution of the Church intensified as well. It is enough to mention the trial of Kielce Bishop Czesław Kaczmarek, who was charged with espionage for the US and activity detrimental to the Soviet Union; the internment of Primate Stefan Wyszyński for not condemning the convicted bishop Kaczmarek and for objecting to the interference of the authorities in the internal matters of the Church; the trial of the Krakow Curia employees as a result of which “Rev. Józef Lelito, Edward Chachlica and Michał Kowalik were sentenced to death, Rev. Szymonek received a life sentence, Rev. Brzycki—15 years’ imprisonment, Rev. Pochopień—8 years’ imprisonment, and Stefania Rospond—6 years’ imprisonment. The death sentences were not executed and, by virtue of the decision of the Polish Council of State of 18 August 1953, they were changed to life imprisonment;”¹⁴ the banning of another 1953 issue of “Tygodnik Powszechny”, which was supposed to come out after Stalin’s death, and the closing down of the Faculty of Theology (est. 1937) at the Jagiellonian University in 1954.

The riots that erupted in June and October 1956 were also important events of this period. They stemmed from the Joseph Stalin Metalworks in Poznań. Although the outbreak of the labor unrest was caused by economic and social factors, there soon appeared a strong, explicitly political undercurrent.”¹⁵ The 28 June brought some tragic incidents which “claimed as many as 73 lives and left several hundred individuals wounded.”¹⁶ As a result, there was growing friction among the party authorities. In the country, “columns of the Soviet troops stationed in Poland were drawing towards the interior. At the same time the units of the Polish Army under the command of Konstantin Rokossovsky, Soviet marshal and Poland’s Defense Minister, were on the move.”¹⁷ On 20 October, Władysław Gomułka came to power in Poland, as a result of which the strong public feeling abated for a brief lapse. Józef Tischer witnessed those events: “I was present in the Parade Square¹⁸ when Gomułka spoke, I saw people who were earnestly convinced that something evil had come to an end.”¹⁹

As it transpired, all the following painful events of 1968, 1970 and 1976, along with the hopes that were aroused, came to nothing. In the 1960s and 1970s an economic and political crisis was rampant in Poland. The social group that was particularly beleaguered by the effects of the burgeoning crisis was laborers. The intelligentsia set about building the first structures of organized opposition. At first, the communication between the two groups proved to be difficult. This problem was addressed by Tischner in the following words: “The workers are not revolting under the influence of literature, nor are they striking having watched Dziady, but they have become sensitive to exploitation.”²⁰ The increasing awareness of the futility of the work done and the growing feeling of injustice resulted in mass protests in August 1980. The election of Karol Wojtyła to the papacy on 16 October 1978 was an important landmark on this path.

The first signs of unrest in 1980 appeared the moment the decision to raise food prices was announced. The production plants in Mielec, Tarnobrzeg, Poznań and Lublin were out on strike. The decision to proclaim a strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk marked a watershed moment. It was made following “the spread of the news about the 7 August 1980 dismissal of Anna Walentynowicz, a gantry crane operator at the Gdańsk Shipyard and an activist of the Free Trade Unions (WZZ), who was 5 months short of retirement age.”²¹ As the strike got underway, 21 demands were formulated; apart from the ones concerned with wages, there were also political and social ones—first and foremost, the strikers demanded that free trade unions be established. The strikes, attended by both laborers and the intelligentsia, led to the signing of agreements, first in Szczecin, then in Gdańsk, Jastrzębie-Zdrój and Katowice, as well as the establishment of the Independent Self-governing Labor Union “Solidarity” (NSZZ Solidarność).” A thread of sympathy and collaboration was soon established between the people involved with the NSZZ and Tischner. As early as 19 October 1980 he preached a sermon during a mass celebrated at the Wawel cathedral, in which he framed the spiritual and ethical foundations for the movement.

The word “solidarity” encapsulates our anxious hopes, inspires us to fortitude and thinking, binds together people who were standing apart from one another yesterday. … The word “solidarity” has joined other, most Polish words to impart new shape to our days. There are several words like this: “freedom,” “independence,” “human dignity”—and today “solidarity.” … Solidarity does not need an enemy or an opponent to grow in strength and develop. It turns towards everybody and against nobody. … Some cleaning needs to be done around the house. Exactly that which needs to be done unites people and inspires to action. It unites people in a deeper and more durable manner than fear of the enemy. We want to be a united nation, but not united by fear. We want to be united by our simplest human obligation. We are going through very special moments today. People are casting away their masks, they are coming out of their hideouts, they are showing their true faces. … Today we are the way we really are. … What we are going through is an event of not only a social or economic nature, but above all of a spiritual nature.²²

An important event of that time was the 1st National Convention of NSZZ “Solidarność” Delegates, which was attended by Tischner as well. Two months later, on 13 December 1980, the communist authorities imposed martial law in Poland. Even though this time has been described in many specialist dissertations, it still holds secrets and arouses emotion. There is no doubt that the economy was ruined; the ineptitude of the authorities was compounded by sanctions imposed by the West. The creeping crisis, as well as political changes in the Soviet Union, were the factors inducing the authorities to make gradual concessions to the opposition. This did not however mean that the terror against the society and the Church ceased, the meaningful example of which was the killing of Rev. Jerzy Popiełuszko by the Security Service officers on 19 October 1984.

In April and May 1988 more strikes were staged; they ended in failure as a result of severe repression of the protesters. On the night of the 4 May, the ZOMO (Motorised Reserves of the Citizens’ Militia) troops used petards and tear gas grenades to force their way into the Vladimir Lenin Steelworks in Krakow and effect a brutal pacification. On 10 May, in Gdańsk, in the wake of failed negotiations, the Strike Committee informed the protesters of the decision to abort the strike. The sight of a silent march of several thousand people made history. “The first row was composed of, inter alia, Lech Wałęsa, Tadeusz Mazowiecki and Alojzy Szablewski, the chairman of the Strike Committee, walking arm in arm.”²³ This moment made the authorities realize that it was no longer possible to control the surge of discontent. The 6 February 1989 saw the beginning of the Round Table Talks, during which the counter-partners of the communists were the opposition representatives who had been persecuted over the years. On the 4 June an election was held and the opposition won by a landslide.

One might venture a proposition whereby the 1990s, which marked the last decade of Rev. Józef Tischner’s life, were—apart from the instituted reforms and the development of a new, post-communist reality—also a time in which a new, highly disturbing tendency began to develop. The pivotal point in one of the major disputes was the role of the Church in the post-communist times. Thus emerged a question which played hard on Tischner’s mind: “And maybe the role of the Church as the voice of the nation entraps it, holds it hostage to public expectation and sentiment, and leads to new ideologization of its message.”²⁴ This was inextricably linked with the issue of dialogue between the Church and individuals far from its pastoral ministry, which in some circles entailed growing aversion to people of other nationalities, and particularly those of Jewish descent. Thus, something which had been viewed as an obvious thing, namely the presence of politics in the Church teaching, now became one of the fundamental and controversial issues. Hence the heated debate (in which Tischner adopted a firm stance) concerned the following question: what if the Church favored politics over ethics in its teaching?²⁵ The diagnoses made by Tischner at that time are obviously open to judgement but it appears that, especially in hindsight, they were uncommonly accurate. “What I found most painful was not the things that the Church said, but the ones it did not say.” To wit, the whole dimension of religion that I learnt from Pietraszko was missing. Because a religion can often perform many social functions, but it can only do so when it is in fact a religion, and not a doctrine or a political party program.”²⁶

Another aspect of the disputes popularly engaged in, which cannot be passed over in silence is the fact that those years brought into relief the strife that had been festering among the “Solidarity” ranks themselves since August 1980. It was concerned with the relation between the working classes and the so-called intelligentsia, as well as with the role played by its leader, Lech Wałęsa, in those historic transformations. “Many Catholics, and especially politicians would stress and reinforce the break-up of the society. Both in the corridors of power and among the grass roots wars began to be waged, regrettably with priests participating.”²⁷ These conflicts climaxed with such events as the 1990 presidential election, which was preceded by a stormy campaign, the 1993 government collapse, and, last but not least, the defeat of the incumbent president in the 1995 election.

It is worth mentioning one more element in order to have a more detailed panorama of the 1990s in Poland. In the eyes of the majority of the society, the radical economic transformation that was carried out at that time, along with all its attendant hardships, was in stark contrast to the success of the so-called post-communists, that is the heirs of the bygone regime. And the success in question was to be seen not only in politics, but above all in the world of business. “As a result, there was growing political support of the people advocating the necessity for a radical break-off.”²⁸ The question emerged as to whether the very process of the political change was a result of some arrangement or scheme masterminded by the elites; undoubtedly, over the years, this question has led to ever deeper divisions and quarrels. One cannot help noticing that Józef Tischner died when those processes were only getting into a full swing, with later years seeing them play out with a vengeance.

The period in which Rev. Józef Tischner lived was a time of momentous and tragic events, transitions and processes. In a sense, for him that period had both a dramatic beginning and a dramatic ending. There is no doubt that it shaped Tischner but, on the other hand, it was Tischner himself who did so to some extent. After all these years, the philosopher’s words: “The way I see it is that it’s going to be quite a long time before we can finally see our normal Poland”²⁹ still have the ring of symbolism.

Mirosław Pawliszyn

University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn

3. INTRODUCTORY PRESENTATION OF JÓZEF TISCHNER’S PHILOSOPHY

Józef Tischner is not infrequently regarded by commentators and researchers of his output as more of an essayist rather than a philosopher par excellence. Leaving the detailed justification of this claim aside given the limited compass of the paper, let us take note of the resultant ramification. The idea behind the following description of his output is as follows: an attempt at a synthetic look at the things Tischner thought and wrote about, as well as the manner in which he did that; bringing out the characteristic elements of the method he applied; and last but not least, pointing to the goal he wanted to achieve by writing a considerable number of texts. Still, the remark contained in the first sentence is a reminder that different methods are employed by an essayist and a philosopher, though they may be aiming at the same target. But it does not end here: in both the spheres of consideration, reflection can take on various characters, beginning with the ones manifesting themselves in subtle nuances, and ending with the ones in mutual opposition. One thing is obvious: the essayist and the philosopher—and by extension their methods—do not have to cancel each other out. And if we take into account the reasoning style of Heidegger, Ricoeur or Lévinas, they complement each other.

Asking about the philosophy of Józef Tischner is in fact asking about the method he employed. In other words, it is a question about the strategy for thinking about that which is crucial, fundamental and primary about it.

If we consider the root of the Greek word ‘method’ (µετά χοδός), means “down the street” or “along the road.” The crucial thing is that we do not mean here “wandering” from place to place. If so, then we are dealing with a very specific situation. There is someone who is moving from one place to another; there is the space between one point and the other point, and the space thus becomes a kind of my place, something that at the given moment appears to be only given to me. Unchanging and made up of objective conditions and circumstances, it becomes something that makes my onward movement possible. Walking down the road is about moving from the starting point to the end point, and the former from the latter is separated by a number of intermediate points, each one resulting from the previous one and leading to the next one. If so, then one is right to ask: is any one of them more important than the others; is there any one that is constitutive for the others? Let us advance a thesis which, given a lack of possibility, cannot be at this moment proven, whereby the starting point, the point of departure is the point in question, because there can be no onward movement without starting off from point one. 

What is this starting point which is peculiar to Józef Tischner? What is the thing that focuses the whole of his consideration, and that imparts his distinctive features? It is not enough to point to the philosophers who inspire him, the ones whom he knows well and can comment on pertinently. Let me, therefore, single out one element that appears to be of great significance. It is about pointing out, or bringing out the warp of a word and its inherent power, the weight of sense it has. And so the philosopher’s work is based on a word, on discerning the fact that it is not only a sound or a vehicle for communication, but in itself it lives by its intrinsic content. Such a perception appears to allude to Paul Ricoeur, who—referring to Pierre Janet—points to the distinction between a cry and a word. “A cry becomes a word the moment it ceases to do and causes something to be done.”¹ For Tischner, a word lives, that is it is not for itself, it is not offered for contemplation; it rather enables being and gives freedom. This thought requires elaboration.

What is meant by this is not the careful character of a word, its painstakingly crafted precision, or compliance with the principles of logic. The careful character of a word that is meant here is the one that enables the surrounding reality to happen. This attitude is first and foremost noticeable in the sermons preached and the retreats led by Tischner. He begins one of his sermons thusly: “In this unusual place which dates back to the beginnings of Poland and difficult times of Christianity; in this the place of work and prayer, a basic question comes to mind: is all this still relevant?”² Everything that the reader comes across in the following pages is about a word coming into existence—a word which does not exert pressure or compulsion. Remarkably, a spoken word is not supposed to pressurize the listener or compel him to anything. Rather: it is to take root, or settle in him. In Tischner’s writings on philosophy or the essence of religion, this tendency is rather obscure, although paradoxically visible; a passage treating of “care” contained in Studies of the Philosophy of Consciousness,³ or practically the whole of ThePhilosophy of Drama or The Controversy over the Existence of Man may serve here as examples. The introduction to The Controversy... reads: “Once again I wanted to expose the areas of good in which man’s humanity that matures in drama takes its roots.”⁴ The very formal beauty or the vividness of this description are hardly the only striking things here; Tischner does not so much show as actually bring out the content, not before but together with the reader.

Tischner takes a close look at that which surrounds him; he does that as a thoroughly sensitive man. For him, the category of sensitivity is not an emotional sensation, a touching moment or even a special kind of sensitivity to some outside stimulus. It is rather about something that can be defined as insightfulness of looking. With this as a foundation, Tischner wants to identify and describe what he can see. At the age of sixteen, he made the following entry in his journal: “The way I have become cognizant of God is that I personified Him in the form of light, and human souls in the form of little flames. Between the Light and the Flames golden threads stretch, connecting the soul with God. I could not see flesh or earth, just spirit.”⁵ Obviously, this passage is not a note of mystical experiences. It is a reflection connected with a school lesson which he attended and which was devoted to the evidence for God’s existence. Both identification and an attempt at description with thought-provoking words, which are so typical of anyone who wants to pursue philosophy, function in Tischner’s writings in a singular way. As he admits, he began learning philosophy “mainly from Thomism. It was the kind of Thomism that we could afford back then.”⁶

For Tischner’s philosophy to be understood, it is crucial to ask about what is to be identified and how it is to be described. Furthermore, this issue sounds in Tischner’s writings very resolute and unequivocal. It is not enough to ask what to learn, but rather what should be learnt, or what must not be learnt.

Tischner is aware that the surrounding world can be learnt. Even a person with only a superficial knowledge of his oeuvre knows that his grasp of the intricacies of philosophy is impressive. Still, he is aware that in fact there is only one subject that makes pursuing philosophy worthwhile. “And then (after the studies of Thomism) came the encounter with a specific human being.”⁷ Again, this encounter has a special function. Let us ask: who is the man encountered by the Polish philosopher? This goes somewhat against the grain of what we can read in the Journal, but he has both a body and a soul. The body is inseparable; there is no escaping, omitting or invalidating it. The important thing is that it is not alien to the soul. Tischner can clearly see that the entire man, including the soul and the body, has found himself in a specific situation. One cannot help but think about him within this context, because otherwise such deliberation would be futile and fruitless. He is not a “historical man;” not in the sense in which Samuel Beckett uses the term—it is not humanity, a body of individuals marching down through history. It is the individual within the world, flung inside it, together with all its attendant consequences. However, in Tischner’s opinion, we are living in times when individuals are faced with common misery; every man’s lot has become enmeshed in wretchedness: “the contemporary man has entered a period of severe crisis of his hope.”⁸ The crisis affects a variety of fields, and it can be described on many different planes. Let us leave this issue aside. The important thing is its origins, the place in which it has its beginnings. Arguably as never before, man has come to face the system which illegitimately wanted to claim all the areas of life bar none. The experience of the war and then communism is not a mere occurrence, something that happened at some point in history. It is a mechanism aimed at annihilating man as such, not only in his corporeal, but also spiritual dimension. And yet, the thing worth emphasizing is that no one is innocent. We are dealing with a situation in which man is making a voyage of discovery revealing probably as-yet-unknown territory portraying his internal structure. The evil nature of the system does not come from nowhere; it has a specific author. On the one hand, there is the one who cherishes hope, and he who holds it out “can see in front of himself open space crisscrossed with roads that call for movement;”⁹ on the other hand, there is the one who is always complicit in evil. The crisis of hope is not only about hope being taken away from man, but also about him “annihilating himself by becoming a player in the game.”¹⁰ What then does Tischner notice as he recognizes reality? There is only one answer: man, but not his being, and not even his lot. The point is to see “that out of the depths of his game longing for that which is really good emerges, and through freedom the longing is searching for space.”¹¹

It is no wonder then that such an approach gave rise to the development of another key term: “drama.” Tischner notes that the drama, “no matter what might be said, points to man’s life;”¹² further on we find some vital clarification. Drama is not a complex of convoluted interhuman references, nor an experience that surfaces in an individual as a result of some or other experiences. That which goes on in someone, happens in some time given to them. A man regards himself as exactly the one who perceives his own time, next to himself he notices other people, and then the world, which he touches with his own feet. This perspective affords Tischner a possibility of looking at reality in a different way. The point is not to describe the world, because then it becomes something that is offered for examination, something beyond me, something that I do not touch with my feet. Here am I in the world, I who am afflicted with the crisis of my own hope. Hence, I do not ask what the world is, or what it is like. I ask about myself, becoming aware that “at the beginning of the drama a question arises: who are you? At the end, there are two opposing possibilities: cursed or blessed.”¹³ The characteristic thing is that actually the problem is not resolved. We do not really know what the alternative is, what it points to, how it relates to our lives.

It goes without saying that Tischner does not leave us here. There are two temptations concerned with showing a solution to a man in such a situation. One temptation comes from this world; it is an offering formulated by socialism, Thomism or integrism, which can be termed a temptation from the totalitarian side; the other one inheres in man himself and comes to the fore as homo sovieticus. The whole problem can be summed up thus: while putting forth a solution, avoid possible pitfalls; while constructing a philosophy of man, avoid another enslavement.

It can be clearly seen that Józef Tischner pursues a philosophy of man, and virtually all his efforts amount to the understanding of this fundamental issue. What is then the right way of thinking about man? Here we encounter two crucial threads. First, one should ask about the “I” itself, capture it in its origins, and then ask about the other as the one who appears on the horizon of the experienced world. It is noteworthy that it is not right to separate these two orders, even though on the thinking plane it is hard to avoid that. They both closely relate to each other; the one is expressed in and through the other. The Polish philosopher’s thinking follows this path to bring the connection between these two dimensions into sharp relief.

The question about man must be posed in the most radical manner possible. What are we to make of this? Radicalness does not mean here comprehensive knowledge, or an exhaustive theory serving as the only possible explanation. Proper understanding is connected with the fact of me being in the world. The following questions are due: what is the world doing to me? How does it reveal me? “Radical philosophical thinking, that is metaphysical thinking, is not born out of amazement at the surrounding world, which is the view held by Aristotelians. Nor does it ask why there is something rather than nothing.”¹⁴ Being is—can this fact direct man to the truth about himself? Tischner is clearly skeptical about this. The time of crisis, which was mentioned above, is nothing else but a crisis of values, and it “contains something that should not be there,”¹⁵ some kind of primary wobble, misrepresentation. What needs to be unearthed in man is the foundation, the primary disposition, something that will enable him to discern values. Tischner develops a concept of the axiological “I,” and to capture it he uses a method of phenomenological description, which often features in his analyses. “All the other concepts of I” can be inferred from the axiological “I.”¹⁶ The starting point is to show the process of solidarity with that which is mine, but the process is defined by me; this is the case, because “I” appears to be marked by value; “I experience myself as a special kind of value.”¹⁷ This specialness is caused by the fact that the very “I” is pure and absolute positiveness. One might say that it is given exactly as such and no negative value is opposed to it. No one can imagine themselves as “personified demonicity,”¹⁸ and any possible attempt at this must be a kind of hoax or game. To throw the concept of the axiological “I” into sharp relief, the author also uses metaphorical language; noteworthily, it is another characteristic quality of Tischner’s philosophizing. It surfaces as hunger, thirst, when man experiences either an absence of or a threat to some value. It is also irreal, present outside the context of time and place, evinces a distinct inclination towards the world, becoming realized in a given object. Last but not least, it is individual, one might say that always and irrevocably irreducible to any other “I.” At this point, however, the above-mentioned, essential element appears. The “I” becomes manifest through the other, together with him, through his axiological individuality.¹⁹

In this way we arrive at yet another important concept in Tischner’s philosophy. A dialogic relation, or—put differently—an encounter can happen between I and the other man. This category, which shows clear influence of Buber or Lévinas, takes on a new meaning. It is not merely about coming into contact with the other, striking up a conversation or exchanging experiences. It is marked by a critical situation in which we all have found ourselves. This crisis is a shared experience of the tragicality of our lot. Tischner multiplies symbols, developing the thought of those who inspire him. “To encounter means to get to directly see the tragic permeating all the modes of being,”²⁰ which in turn means that the encounter between me and you happens in the place where good grapples with evil, where there is a real threat to the former. The problem is that it is impossible to describe, or characterize this situation at the outset. We are condemned exactly to these metaphors and symbols; one might say that in a sense the very beginnings of the encounter find us helpless and naked. We realize that something is happening, but we do not know where it is coming from, on behalf of whom and for what purpose. The only element illuminating the profundity of the encounter is the good that we can choose together. A fundamental gesture on the part of the encounter participants is a mutual permission that they give each other to be, being fully aware that one can leave or betray the other. Here, good and evil are experienced at their very source, where both I and the other can distinctly feel that our encounter “gravitates towards some sacrifice.”²¹

Because of Józef Tischner’s profession, his philosophical thinking not infrequently, and perhaps inevitably, enters the domain of religious thinking. It appears to be not so much an addition as an indispensable complement to properly pursued philosophy. In Tischner’s opinion, an encounter between two men somehow reflects a relation between a person and God. One could point to the essential difference between one and the other, and there is no limit to possible descriptions. However, let us point out just one that appears to be of great significance. The face manifests itself the moment the other becomes a participant in my drama, when it turns out that my question “who am I?” does not resound in an empty space, that there is a witness by my side, someone who experiences it in a similar way. The question asked by the witness appears to be more resounding, to be an appeal directed exactly at me, and no one else. How does God reveal Himself if I do not encounter His face in the world? The biblical “where art thou” directed at Adam lies at the very heart of a religious encounter. As Tischner says, the origins of religion hold the mystery of election. God’s epiphany is not presence out of which “some claim”²² is directed at me—it is pure love, an invitation to reciprocity. It also appears to be the only possibility whereby man can be delivered from the crisis, and the axiological “I” can satisfy the hunger that is eating away at it. In the period when he was already afflicted with the incurable disease, Tischner wrote: “That which picks you and lifts you up is love.”²³ This does not, however, mean that the road that the thinker followed is now thus terminated. We have given some thought to the starting point for his oeuvre; we have tried to pick up the trail he followed. What comes at the end of the road? The answer due is: love, and “the word points to man’s creative capabilities, admirable skillfulness at working miracles.”²⁴ The last text penned by the Polish philosopher is very striking: “Have you, dear reader, ever wrestled with your own love? Have you ever felt the helplessness that powerless love can plunge you into?”²⁵

By making man the main object of his analyses—a man relating to another man, but above all to God—by following the path marked out by phenomenology and existentialism, striving to deliver man from troublesome miseries conditioned by totalitarianisms, flawed nature and the mystery of sin, Tischner remains faithful to what he wrote in The Philosophy of Drama, where the word “helplessness” appears; in the last text it is replaced with “powerlessness.” But in this case “a mystery of participation” opens up to man. God Himself takes part in it; after all, religio means a bond.

Jarosław Jagiełło

The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow

4. FROM AXIOLOGY TO AGATHOLOGY: JÓZEF TISCHNER’S PHILOSOPHY OF MAN

4.1. Introduction

The analysis of the life and philosophical oeuvre of Józef Tischner, one of the most prominent Polish philosophers of the 20th century, enables us to speak about him as a typical contemporary philosopher. Above all, Tischner was acutely sensitive to all that was happening around. One might say that in large measure he acquired a skill at linking the experience of thinking with the experience of everyday life. The tools he used to do the linking were not research methods dating back to some distant philosophical past, but above all those that were flourishing spectacularly in Tischner’s lifetime. All his numerous writings serve to testify to his application of the phenomenological-hermeneutic method. He learnt it first and foremost from Roman Ingarden, his teacher in Krakow. However, he developed it specifically through diligent studies of the writings of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, as well as Hans Georg Gadamer, Emmanuel Lévinas and Paul Ricoeur. In his first book that appeared in print he wrote:

We know that what we understand to be the concept of the phenomenological method in fact includes a multitude of methods informed by a shared attempt at describing that which manifests itself to our intuition. Within the phenomenological method we also encounter a hermeneutic interpretation of the meaning of objects and occurrences in the surrounding world, and often of the meaning of a philosophical text.¹

With the aid of hermeneutic phenomenology Tischner critiqued and described the most pressing problems that beset 20th-century people, and in particular his compatriots in Poland, individuals living between the Tatras and the Baltic Sea.² Among a number of problems, Tischner was above all struck by the tension between good and evil, salvation and condemnation, enslavement and deliverance, hope and despair. This tension mapped out Tischner’s paths leading to understanding of man. At the same time, these paths typically led to the understanding of God, because they delineated the horizon of the question about God.³ Hence, these two horizons—the one concerning the question of man and the other concerning the question of God—most frequently interpermeate.⁴

It is noteworthy that all of Tischner’s activities, both academic and pastoral,⁵ all his philosophical texts,⁶ religious and theological essays,⁷ as well as opinion articles on socio-political issues⁸ are characterized by one common feature. To wit, Tischner was fascinated by man and it was about him that he was primarily concerned. The object of his concern was the man who in the 20th century had to cope with a variety of crises that afflicted him. They were not only related to the tragedy caused by the two totalitarian systems, the symbols of which were the tragic events of Auschwitz and Kolyma.⁹ Tischner would offer his attention to man, who in Europe was losing his spontaneous faith in God and belief in his unchanging nature. He pointed to the risk of relativism in the understanding of the truth, and of Manicheism, which resulted from that state of affairs and which took on two forms: nihilism and pessimism. He wrote: “Nihilism holds that there are no objective or compelling values; there are only facts. Pessimism holds that there are values, but they are unavailable to weak man; they are there so that his defeat is all the more pronounced.”¹⁰ Contrary to some classics of the 19th and 20th century philosophy, Tischner claimed that the only hope for man faced with the collapse of creation was to be found primarily in opening up to the world of values. Tischner looked for the fundamentals of axiology—the science of philosophical reflection on values—“at the heart of thinking itself.”¹¹ By adopting such a stance, he placed himself in opposition to both positivist thought and the Heideggerian project of the truth of being. He could also clearly see that people threatened with nihilism were themselves beginning to long for a lasting world of values. He supported their most profound longing with a popular motto: “a world devoid of values is not in fact our world.”¹² Thus he introduced his listeners and readers into the significant 20th-century school of thinking in values. Tischner was firmly convinced that it was actually in this school that man could see hope arise in him, that he could gradually reconstruct his relations with the surrounding world, but above all with a fellow human being and God.

The axiological dimension of the philosophy of man which Tischner developed in the 1970s and 1980s constitutes a very important stage on the road his thought was following. Down this road he struck “a vein of gold”¹³—philosophy of human drama. Admittedly, he did not have enough time to develop this philosophy in full, but he still managed to creatively emphasize its true core—thinking in good. That is why he brought to light various areas of good to show that it is chiefly in it that “man’s humanity that matures in drama takes its roots.”¹⁴ At the risk of some rhetorical exaggeration, let us say that Tischner’s philosophy of drama—to quote Heidegger’s words—will “stand still like a star in the world’s sky”¹⁵ to illuminate the darkness of human life and to open “the horizon for further reflection”¹⁶ on the truth of human being.

4.2. The Philosophy of man in light of thinking in values

Even though the axiological trait of Tischner’s anthropological thought is a highly striking fact, it would be wrong to say that early Tischner tried to reduce philosophy of man to philosophy of values, or anthropology to ethics. Far from this endeavor, he emphasized that philosophy of man—when isolated from reflection on the world of values—would ultimately lead to its fragmentary, one-sided understanding of man, in whose life everything happens on one level. What is more, Tischner claimed that such a life was not only possible, but not self-contradictory either: “Instead of giving precedence to one thing over another, or showing preference, we can order things along a coordinate: ‘first this, then that.’ I will first eat my lunch, then I will go for a walk, and later I will read a book—all on a par.”¹⁷ If philosophy of man—writes Tischner—presented him on one level only, if it was devoid of the axiological dimension, then the effect of such a philosophical stance would be an image of “one-dimensional man”—such an image would in turn be like a slap in the face to human dignity. “Essentially, Tischner explains, none of us wants to be a man of one dimension. Thus, the preferential way of our thinking appears to us as a guarantee of authenticity and fundamentals of human dignity.”¹⁸ Therefore, reflection on values constitutes the first important step in the development of Tischner’s understanding of man—it is according to values that “man shapes his attitudes, deeds … evaluates other people’s attitudes and deeds.”¹⁹ Thanks to thinking and acting in values man can relate to both himself and other people. The axiological horizon of understanding of man is therefore a horizon on which looms the truth of human mode of being, of a direct manifestation of that “which man is.”²⁰

Man as an ethical being

According to Tischner, man in genere is first and foremost an ethical being.²¹ To clarify this expression, Tischner refers to an image of a song, instrument and a musician. “Man is like a song floating in time. Who plays this song? Man himself is both the instrument and the artist. … Man—like a song—lives among values towards which his endeavors, thoughts and deeds are directed.”²² As Tischner emphasizes, the world of values is something durable, a reliable point of reference—in a word, a “musical score”²³ that man wants to be faithful to so that it is best played, so that the song which he himself is—his life—can resound around in the best way. In other words, thanks to opening up to values, man can fulfil his existence, for he is the only one who “is anxious to get some values that he is subject to materialized in the world thanks to him.”²⁴ Like Scheler, Tischner attributes objective existence to values, but this existence is not real, but ideal. He writes: “As we face values, they are independent of our whim and need implicit realization. The objective existence of values is sometimes called ‘ideal.’ Hence, it is sometimes said that values are the ‘ideals’ of human behavior in a specific situation.”²⁵ At this point it is worth noting that in his lectures on the Schelerian phenomenology of values, Tischner readily subscribed to the stance adopted by the German phenomenologist, according to whom values are objective, and as such are true objects of cognition, and so have an objective nature.²⁶ At the same time, Tischner would stress the following: “values are ‘objectivities’ that we find to be existent; we do not think them up; we find ourselves faced with them; we do not make them up, they are given to us. … If they were subjective, that would mean that they are ‘given only to me.’ Therefore, the more something is given to many, the more it is objective.”²⁷ That was chiefly the sense in which Tischner viewed man’s relation to values, which are always objectivities. However, under the influence of Kant’s theory of cognition, Tischner also explained that if values were real, then one could “burn, eat or drink them”; values are not real; in other words, they do not exist in time or space.”²⁸ It is in this sense that the existence of values is ideal. With this claim, Tischner undoubtedly incorporated Max Scheler’s and Roman Ingarden’s thinking about values into the project of his own axiology-founded philosophy of man.

Temporality of the human person

The relation between man’s existence and his realization of values in the world, which is so specially emphasized by Tischner, is of great relevance for his theory of man. If a man experiences himself in his own stance and position on and, by extension, his relation to values—thus playing the song of his existence—then he does not so much exist in the sense that he “is” as he happens, takes shape, occurs under the influence of values. Therefore, one may claim that in Tischner’s view of philosophy there is no room for some permanent, unchanging type of human nature. The existential of temporality resp. historicity has in this context a direct bearing on the characteristics of human existence; it constitutes its fundamental endowment. If so, Tischner, undoubtedly under the influence of Heidegger, distances himself from the timeless, substantialist concept of human nature. Many a time does he admit that above all he has sympathy for the understanding of man as existence, and not substance.²⁹ At the same time it should be noted that man’s temporalized relation to values constitutes some immutable formal aspect of the ontic constitution of man, its constitutive feature. If we wanted to apply to the Tischnerian philosophy of man the terminology of Michael Landmann’s fundamental anthropology, then we could say that the temporality of man’s relation to the world of values, and by extension the event-like character of his existence constitutes his essential anthropinon. In his essence, man is an ethical being, because from the beginning he happens/occurs in his relation to values. He cannot exist otherwise. While stressing values in the conception of man is a point of discrepancy between Tischner and Heidegger, the emphasis laid on the role of time in the development of the truth of human being distinctly brings the Tischnerian and Heideggerian approaches closer to the issues concerned with human being. It is to be again noted that the anti-substantialist quality of the Tischnerian concept of man does not have a dogmatic dimension. As it has already been stated, man’s changeability conditioned by his temporal relation to values holds that which is unchanging, and without which the process of man’s formation of himself, his own actions and deeds would not be possible. That which is unchanging, permanent, which has a substantialist character is exactly the above-mentioned musical score, that is “particular arrangements of values that the artist wants to impart new tones to.”³⁰ Hence, one might claim that the Tischnerian concept of man constitutes a link connecting the existentialist and substantialist perceptions of man.³¹

Tischner calls a man thus perceived a person. In his phenomenological description of the person’s essence, Tischner does not follow in Boethius’ footsteps, and so he does not substantialize a person; rather, he refers to the root of the Latin word ‘persona.’ As a per se being, it “refers to values outside it, it builds itself as a value—a particular value called ‘I’.”³² Building one’s own “I” is a great task, man’s internal creative endeavor that extends throughout his lifetime.

The axiological “I”

In this context, it should be noted that the question of “I” was present in Tischner’s philosophical investigations from the outset. In his doctoral dissertation written under the supervision of Roman Ingarden, Tischner first summarizes Husserl’s views on the transcendental “I,” then takes a critical stance on them, and finally presents an outline of his own concept of the transcendental “I” as a constitutive nature directly defining a pure subject of consciousness.³³ His habilitation dissertation continues these phenomenological investigations. It focuses around the issue of conscientivity, that is self-awareness, as analyzed with regard to varieties of its primal nature. By drawing a methodological distinction between the experience of the somatic “I,” the “I” as the subject of cognition and the personal “I” (after all “we are aware that the ‘I’ is always and invariably the same”³⁴), Tischner concludes—unlike Husserl, Heidegger and even Ricoeur—that the phenomenon of the primal “I” appears first and foremost in the sphere of axiology: The primal “I” is “a being-for-itself,” because the world of values is for it. It is an existence, because it is inclined towards values.”³⁵ Therefore, in his inquiries about the most fundamental conditioning of the so-called process of egotic solidarisation, that is the constitutive process of the consciousness of the human “I,” Tischner demonstrated that the process is ultimately conditioned by the experience of values. In this way, phenomenological investigations led him to discover the significance of axiology in the perception of “I,” the most important effect of these investigations being exactly the discovery of man’s axiological “I.” While expressing his transcendental thought, in another place Tischner writes that an indispensable condition for the possibility of constitution of any experiential varieties of the human “I,” as well as such existentials as care or guilt is only the axiological “I,” because

… the axiological “I” is the primal “I.” This means that the primal “I” is not a real, temporal-spatial being, but an irreal value. The real existence of man is a more or less successful attempt at a temporal-spatial realization of this value. … The dimension of humanity opens up in man thanks to the sensation of the axiological “I” and the attendant experience of the outside world in its axiological dimension.”³⁶

The axiological “I,” defined by Tischner as the internal value governing human consciousness and capable of engendering values, must be continually confirmed with every human choice of values.³⁷ Thus, regarding the axiological “I” Tischner writes that “in a sense it is absolute, because it is an ultimate subject of goods and values.”³⁸ If the axiological “I” constitutes a person’s real core, then it must be concluded that Tischner finds every human person to be an absolute, individual and unique value.³⁹ The original foundation on which to build a person is the objective hierarchy of values—it is only from this perspective that man experiences himself as the creator of the truth of his being. The word “creativity”⁴⁰ plays an important role in the Tischnerian concept of man.Man creates himself as a value in this world: “A man’s ethical deed is an act of true creativity …. Man builds himself.”⁴¹ That is why in Tischner’s opinion we can speak about ourselves in terms of works of art founded on the human act of creation. However, Tischner does not view this act in a technical sense—in his opinion a technique is above all of normative significance; it is based on orders and prohibitions.⁴² An ethical deed is above all about revealing, unearthing and releasing that which is fundamental for the process of personal formation. What Tischner means here is a “release, rescue and consolidation of the goodness of will.” It is exactly this releasing that “is Art—the greatest art of all.”⁴³

A dialogic mode of man’s existence

Man is therefore a special being. He confirms himself when he finds the right answer to the call directed at him from the world of objective values—by making them come true, he creates himself as a person. But this constitutive process of personal formation does not happen in solitude:the basic model which Tischner uses to construe man is not an egologic but dialogic model. This model is also the key to proper understanding of the very core of ethical experience. And so Tischner writes: “The primal source of ethical experience is not an experience of values as such, but the discovery of another man by our side.”⁴⁴ In some other place, he adds that the basic source of all axiological experiences, including the experience of thinking, is an encounter with another man.⁴⁵ This above all means that only the presence of another man ensures a possibility of ethics. Without his presence, there is no point in talking about the experience of such basic ethical values as truth, justice or fidelity. What is more, without taking into account the other man’s viewpoint, it might turn out that we will lose sight of the original sense of these values—the dialogic sense. The presence of the other man is also the basic condition for ensuring objectivity in thinking about values. This means that the fellow being protects me against subjectivization of values, seeing them only through my eyes. An encounter with another man undoubtedly serves as the foundation for preserving objectivity in human ethical commitments, among which the leading role is played by the commitment to responsibility.⁴⁶ In his philosophy of man Tischner oftentimes emphasizes this theme, which he owes above all to both Ingarden and Lévinas.⁴⁷

In Tischner’s opinion, an encounter with another man constitutes a primal space in which “to mold one’s own humanity.”⁴⁸ This molding comes to be expressed not so much in the knowledge of ethical norms or proprieties as in profound sensitivity to a fellow being who has found himself faced with a very trying situation in his life. So the point Tischner is making here is not only about the necessity to know values, but also to really fulfil them, thereby meaningfully asserting one’s own relation to another man. This path leads to recognition, defense and rescue of the fellow being. Seen from this perspective, in an encounter, the other man is always to be an end in himself, and not a means to an end. In such an outlook on man, Tischner clearly refers to the famous principle of Kant’s categorical imperative,⁴⁹ but he takes a step further than the Königsberg-based philosopher. Tischner does not content himself with the formal side of this principle, but points to consequences for life that follow. That is why he writes: “We stand face to face with another man and ask ourselves: ‘do I have a right to cause him distress?’ … The Samaritan saw a dying man and realized: ‘I need to help him.’”⁵⁰ The presence of a fellow being stirs us into realizing a specific value. We hear the fellow being’s cry urging us to recognize him in his existence, in his value and thus rescue it. The other’s humanity appears here as a particular value which needs no justification, because its existence is recognized by all the other values that we offer to the fellow being. An encounter with another man aspires to the status of an event of primal space in which thinking in values manifests itself most fully.⁵¹ The main purpose of this thinking is a unique value which in man “has become a person.”⁵²

It is of particular note that an encounter with another man not only makes him realize a personal character of his being, but at the same time arouses in me the conviction that I am the value called a person. As I accept the presence of a fellow being in my life, I come to the conclusion that I myself am a subject of acts of goodness. It is around them that somehow I always integrate myself internally, thereby confirming them in my own personal existence. However, the impetus for this integration does not first arise in me, but it originally comes from the Other. This circumstance serves as the basis for the growth in my ethical self-knowledge. The promotion resp. rescue of the fellow being is at the same time promotion resp. rescue of myself. Let us follow Tischner in stressing once again that the promotion and rescue take place in the blaze of the world of values.⁵³ The Krakow-based philosopher imparts a universal character to this truth: “Man serves values by realizing them; values ‘serve’ man by rescuing him.”⁵⁴

Tischner closely connects an interhuman encounter within the axiological horizon with a particular experience that can affect each subject of dialogue—an experience of mutual hope.⁵⁵ Since it is one of the experiences crucial for understanding both the axiological and the so-called agathological dimension of Tischner’s philosophy of man, due attention should be paid to this issue. Besides, there is one more reason why Tischner’s emphasis on this issue is absolutely essential—it shows how the dramatic aspect of life becomes the deepest background for Józef Tischner’s philosophy of man.

Even though Tischner went down in the contemporary history of philosophy primarily as the Polish author of the philosophy of drama, the core of which is made up of both axiology and agathology, or the philosophy of good threatened with evil, it must be clearly stressed that from the outset this core was merged with the question of hope, which Tischner discussed over a period of many years. It is particularly noteworthy that Tischner’s first book entirely treats of hope.⁵⁶ Also, some of his last texts serve as an explicit proof of the great relevance of the question of hope for his religious thinking.⁵⁷ There was even a time when he was referred to as a Polish philosopher of hope. He himself said the following:

… when I look at my work done as a priest and a philosopher, I find that over those several dozen or so years I mainly worked on human hope. … Human hope as acting from a nursery school pupil, to a schoolchild, and to an adult in various situations, at life’s various crossroads, where work is forever needed.⁵⁸

Human hope

As previously stated, Tischner’s thought about hope blends in with the nation’s history. The co-author of the ninth part of the Catechism of the Catholic Religion sees it as a particularly testing time.⁵⁹ According to Tischner, hope is always preceded by some kind of a trying situation in one’s life, coupled with uncertainty, anxiety, legitimate fear or even a temptation of despair. Hope comes as an answer to this kind of painful states and experiences. It provides power necessary to make the effort of existence; it contains a statement-promise: “You need to tell the man: you are larger than your despair.”⁶⁰ It is easy to see that Tischner right away places hope within some hierarchy of values, and the experience of values will always determine the dimension of hope.⁶¹ In The World of Human Hope Tischner writes:

Hope arises out the experience of the changing nature of the world and man. It sees this changing nature in a special manner. It is not about the change in the condition or place, but the change in the links between the world and the values that become realised in the world. Values might not become realised. … And then the lot of values would be blighted.⁶²

Under the influence of Scheler, Tischner calls this situation tragicality. Hope is an answer to human “tragicality;”⁶³ it is a conviction expressed in thought, word and action that values still stand a chance of becoming realized, that they will not be annihilated or betrayed.⁶⁴ As we ask about the sense of this realization which takes place in the sphere of hope, in fact on the one hand we ask about that because of which values are to be realized, and on the other hand we ask about the sense, and by extension about the purpose of hope, which after all is a value as well. Tischner finds this issue to be of great importance. The point of hope, or of any other ethical value for that matter, is the truth. Hope delineates a triple horizon within which to discover and view the truth. It is the truth about man, God and the world of human surroundings.

As Tischner goes on looking for the truth about man, he first pays attention to the very basis of hope. His first book contains the following words:

It is in and through hope that the axiological dimension of the human existence emerges. Man experiences himself most profoundly when he feels that he is some kind of mysterious value, even to himself. At its very core, the human “I” is an axiological “I.” It serves as the basis for his hope. Hope is the most profound way of protecting this value. Man uses his hope to defend himself and to fight to have a human face.⁶⁵

When Tischner thus presents the profound link between hope and the axiological “I”—which in a sense is an absolute “I” as the ultimate subject of goods and values⁶⁶—he by no means claims that hope is an effective way for a man to care only for himself, or that it is a manifestation of one of many varieties of human selfishness. It should be borne in mind that Tischner’s thinking about hope within the axiological horizon is entirely integrated into his concept of man as a dialogic and religious being. Of course, in the state of hope, man shelters himself, his axiological “I” above all when he finds the right answer to the call coming to him from the world of objective values. But we must not forget that according to Tischner this sheltering does not take place in solitude, in isolation from the presence of “Others.” Once again, let us recall that the basic model which Tischner uses to construct the ethics of hope is not an egologic but a dialogic model.⁶⁷ In other words, it is only the presence of “the Other” that can ensure an emergence of such an ethical experience as the experience of hope. At the same time, an encounter with the “Other” gives rise to a primal space for the formation of the axiological “I,” the existence of which in man is by no means a result of just knowing ethical norms or behavioral etiquette. Above all, it comes to be expressed in profound sensitivity to a fellow being who has found himself a very trying situation in his life.⁶⁸ It is from him that a call comes for me to recognize him in his existence as such, to recognize him in his value, thereby becoming a hope of his rescue.⁶⁹ As Tischner observes, an encounter with the “Other” is also a chance for me, as it arouses in me a hope of self-fulfillment, a revelation of my own “I” in the dialogic space, thanks to which I am able to go beyond myself and in a gesture of generosity rise above all selfishness and personal gain.⁷⁰ Hope, which touches the core of man’s existence and his connection with the world of values, fills not only the space of interhuman communion, but also becomes integrated into the encounter between man and Transcendence.

In this context, Tischner opens up the second horizon of the cognitive function of hope, speaking the crucial truth about the Christian God. For Tischner, hope—next to reasonable faith—is a way of searching for God, who for man is not only an object of intellectual cognition, but above all someone to whom man can entrust his hope. Discovered in human hope, “God becomes the rescue of man—the creature that goes on a pilgrimage, but occasionally happens to go astray.”⁷¹

The third type of cognition through hope enables man to discover the truth about the world. It is not some kind of abstractly-construed world, but the world in which a specific man lives—a man entangled in politics and economy.⁷² Afflicted by betrayal, enslavement and a crisis of work, man is also called upon to cherish hope of independence of his work.⁷³ Tischner’s thinking about the world implies the most profound truth about man called upon to be mature, and maturity is about “bearing fruit towards heroism.”⁷⁴ On the one hand, hope is the basic condition for man’s ethical maturing, but on the other hand heroism serves as the basis for putting hope in another man: “Another man may betray me, but this does not mean that I can betray the other man. I cannot entrust my hope to my pupil, because my pupil of today can become my traitor tomorrow. Still, I am prepared to take upon myself his hope. That is what my heroism is about.”⁷⁵ Where is this kind of heroism to be found in man? Where is its mainstay? Is the abstract law of history that Hegel once spoke about supposed to be the mainstay? Nor is it Dasein, the ontological picture of which was painted by early Heidegger, nor the social class described by Marx. What is then the mainstay of the man prepared for heroism, asks Tischner. The mainstay is man, a man’s heart. One looks for another man’s heart in order to place a part of one’s hopeful heart in it. And the bread and wine are a visible memento of this.”⁷⁶ And again at the heart of the issue concerned with human hope appears the one who is the God of Christianity, the one whose hope can hold a man’s concrete hope. The conviction that human hope is not opposed to Divine hope is also a source of power enabling man to place his hope in God’s hands.⁷⁷

This rich mosaic of issues in the Tischnerian philosophy of hope is informed by two crucial thematic threads. The first one concerns the relation between hope and time,⁷⁸ while the second one points to the phenomenon of entrustment.⁷⁹ The method for investigating these threads adopted by Tischner is a phenomenological-hermeneutic method.

By comparing the Greek drama with the Judeo-Christian drama, Tischner distinguishes hope devoid of the temporal dimension from hope which is embedded in a historical event set in time and space. Hope in the Judeo-Christian tradition sensitizes us to an important truth about man—the truth about the temporality of his being, which reveals an open meaning of human life. The open meaning is the opposite of the closed meaning, which features in the Greek tragedy. Tischner writes:

Odysseus’ hope was above all his memory. … Abraham’s hope—the hope of the Promised Land—continually overcomes memory. … tomorrow is not a repeat of yesterday. … As a matter of fact, Odysseus could only have met Penelope, whom he had met before. As for the Judeo-Christian hope … [we are heading—J. J.] for an encounter with something that man has never encountered before. … There are two possibilities: hope according to memory—Odysseus’ hope—in which case your meaning of life is closed-ended, or memory according to hope, in which case you have a history, reflection on the past, historicity, history, awareness that you yourself are historical along with the history.⁸⁰

Analyzing the temporality of man in the context of the question of hope, Tischner likens hope to a light “which widens the horizon of human vision and enables any purposeful movement in the future. It imparts life to a life.”⁸¹ Hope as light dispels darkness which prevents man from discerning the right meaning of his existence. This thought by Tischner is highly coincident with the theme of light and darkness which in the contemporary philosophy of hope can be encountered in Ernst Bloch’s work.⁸² Some coincidence between the views of both the thinkers can also be found in the depiction of the temporal structure of hope. Let us remember that in Bloch’s work it was about the tension between ‘the now-and-not-yet.’⁸³ When Tischner speaks about the purpose of religious hope, which ultimately is God Him-self, and about the time intrinsic to hope, which is the time of drawing closer to God, he draws attention to the divine pedagogy of hope, in which God through his promises rears man to understand a special temporal tension—it is in it that a gradual realization of the meaning of life happens. We read: “[God—J.J.] is so close as if He was touching man, but as He does that, He says: see you, which means: not yet, not like this yet, wait a little longer....”⁸⁴ Of course, there is nothing to suggest that Tischner knew the German philosopher well. The similarity is rather coincidental and to be observed on various planes of meaning, which anyway speaks volumes for the endeavors of the 20th-century philosophy of hope. The reference to history, and to unknown and open-ended future in which hope comes to be realized is a clear indication of the inspiration that Tischner owes to both Gabriel Marcel and Paul Ricoeur.⁸⁵

Tischner emphasizes another important theme in the philosophy of hope in his analysis of the concept of entrustment. Without a doubt, it was Marcel that sensitized Tischner to this concept.⁸⁶ But Tischner evolved it in his peculiar way. His thinking came to feature a new, above-mentioned, vantage point, which commands a view of the very core of hope. It is about man’s heroic attitude. Tischner regards this attitude from various angles. He finds one thing to be certain though. Heroism is somehow connected with the acceptance of hope of a potential traitor, but at the same time “with an act of entrusting your own hope to a fellow being.”⁸⁷ This heroism engenders justification of man in his existence. According to Marcel’s intuition, to justify means to let the other be.

As it has already been stated, Tischner associates the experience of hope in its original dimension with the experience of the presence of the “Other.” Someone entrusts himself to the “Other.” This “other” is another man, but it might also be God Himself.⁸⁸ Thus the relation of entrustment becomes realized. In turn, entrusting engenders reciprocity. Again, Tischner associates this relation with an act of promise. Without a promise, hope is empty. The author of the promise is the entrustee of hope—the one who entrusts his hope. Opposite him stands the one who can accept the promise:

What is the relation between I, who accept the promise, and you, who give me the promise? This relation is called a relation of hope entrustment. As you give a promise, you become a hope entrustee. Of course, when you entertain hope, occasionally you are faced with trying times. You are undergoing tests of hope: fear, despair, all manner of anxiety. And in order to maintain hope, you return to the hope entrustee. Never mind what he promises you. What matters is what kind of a person he is.⁸⁹

A true hope entrustee understands the words: “carry each other’s burdens.”⁹⁰ He also understands that in the relation of entrustment, in the relation of reciprocity “you are both entrustees of each other’s hopes.”⁹¹ Tischner, like Marcel, finds the entrustment of hope to be the right key to the development of a bond, a communion⁹² among people, to the emergence of a real community.

As Tischner connects the relation of entrustment with the experience of heroism, he wants to emphasize the radical character of reciprocity which is founded by hope. He who entrusts himself to the “Other,” incurs some risk. His entrustment may come to nothing. Still, he entrusts himself and this experience—just like accepting the traitor’s hope—is an experience of heroism as well. As he entrusts his hope, he entrusts himself and does not know what the “Other” will do with the entrustment. Tischner provides a pertinent depiction of such a situation with the example of the crucified Christ. His death is meaningful. This meaning is founded on hope and its intrinsic values. The central value of Jesus’ hope is man, to whom Jesus gives a promise of choice. Tischner writes: “Death offered on account of man means that Christ puts His hope in man too. … It is not only the presence of suffering that is decisive [in heroism—J.J.], nor is it only the fact that the choice rises above the substance of pain and acts in spite of pain. The heroic thing here is also, or above all, the fact that some hope has been put in man,”⁹³ that man will not waste that which Jesus did for him. Tischner presents the bilateral character of hope entrustment—acceptance of hope and entrustment of hope—also in another context, in which he points to a fundamental bond between hope, heroism and human freedom: “not only do I accept hope myself, but I also burden the other with my hope. As I entrust my freedom and hope to the other, I confirm in him his freedom and capability for heroism, as well as his humanity in motion.”⁹⁴ Hope entrustment is always delineated by the horizon of the experience of the “Other.”

Following in the footsteps of Ricoeur’s philosophy of hope,⁹⁵ Tischner also ponders over various pathologies of hope which he can see within the agathological horizon sensu largo, that is within the horizon of the tension between good and evil. Diseased hope is always a result of some evil, ultimately the evil of betrayal.⁹⁶ How-ever, evil will not have the last word, because when confronted with hope it turns out be a brittle and labile evil,⁹⁷ and merely a trial in which—as we already know—hope matures.⁹⁸ Life experience allows Tischner to speak about the evil of totalitarianism—it deludes man with the promise to fulfil his hopes, but in fact takes away his capability for entrustment.⁹⁹ Another threat to hope is posed by clinging to memories, which cause man’s hope to be stuck in the past, “to be a repeat of what once was”¹⁰⁰—like in the case of Odysseus. Similarly, human hope can be threatened by a man’s attitude which Tischner calls being-against-oneself. Tischner reveals it as a negative side of self.¹⁰¹ Being-against-oneself paralyses man in his movement towards the world and other people. As a result, a man causes suffering to himself and others. As he reflects on Antoni Kępiński’s book,¹⁰² Tischner points to the cause of this paralysis, and calls a withdrawn man a hideout man, that is one who “suffers from hope disease: his hope follows the principle of flight from people.”¹⁰³ The disease is rooted in the suppression of the will to open up to the world and “Others” for the sake of the development of more or less conscious fear of people and the world. The progressive degeneration of the desire for dialogic values in man first leads to the limitation of the “space of hope,”¹⁰⁴ which in turn entails a simultaneous shrinking of the “space of life.”¹⁰⁵ In this context, Tischner emphasizes his favorite theme in his philosophy of man—the theme of freedom. The subtle experience of freedom was present in Tischner’s thinking from the very beginning.¹⁰⁶ In his opinion, there is a profound relation between the experience of various dialogic values and the experience of hope and freedom. The inherent attribute of a value is that it shies away from compulsion—no one can be forced to accept it, and everything depends on a man’s free will, on the little “‘if you want to’ … . But then again—says Tischner—the very fact that “you are under no compulsion among values” is a value in itself—a value of freedom.”¹⁰⁷ Apart from this, there is the inextricable link between hope and freedom—the degree of freedom conditions the degree of hope and vice versa. A man’s hideout as a place of shrunken hope is a place of “apprehensive freedom which is anxious about the need for self-protection. The open space of hope is a space of freedom anxious about the need to realize values,”¹⁰⁸ where the objective is not myself, but the “Other.”¹⁰⁹

But the greatest pathology, threat, and a polar opposite of hope is despair, which can “accompany” the totalitarianism of memories¹¹⁰ and being-against-oneself. Man can always yield to despair. “When the danger is so great that death becomes the hope, then despair is the hopelessness of not even being able to die.”¹¹¹ As he many a time comments on this thought of Kierkegaard, Tischner characteristically finds exactly hope to be the resort for a despairing man. He means a particular hope which he calls an essential hope.

Let us once again recall that all the issues concerned with hope are for Tischner intrinsic to his dialogic concept of man.¹¹² The scale of values that people experience in dialogue “carves” the scale of hopes that people employ while turning to one another.¹¹³ Among a variety of human hopes, Tischner singles out the essential hope.¹¹⁴ He notes that defining this hope is not easy, and it can only be more or less aptly described. The important thing, however, is to discover it. Tischner construes the ability to discover¹¹⁵ this kind of hope to be the basic manifestation of true, and not merely “enacted”¹¹⁶ human morality. Discovering the “Other’s” essential hope arouses in a man the need for actual action, fulfilling some value, which now ceases to be only something abstract, something recorded in an ethical norm.¹¹⁷ An essential hope calls for a specific deed: “It can be a simple act of fluffing up a pillow under a sick person’s head, stepping out of a row of concentration camp prisoners and retiring to a hunger bunker, which was supposed to be someone else’s fate.” Therefore, the essential hope, which can make a man capable of even a heroic act, points to the original truth about the values living in dialogue, in the space of an interhuman encounter. Such values are a manifestation of the gift that one man can be for another man. In this context, Tischner speaks about one-of-a-kind relation between the essential hope and values, and in particular the value that is a person. It is exactly thanks to the essential hope that we turn to the dearest values to realize them “in the world, in another man, in ourselves … Through the essential hope manifested is that which is most personal in a person.”¹¹⁸ It is in a fellow being that a man experiences that which is “both individual and absolute”¹¹⁹—he experiences a person. The essential hope is of fundamental, prozopoic (person-formative) relevance for the Tischnerian concept of man: without it, man cannot effectively defend himself against the never-ending threat of the ultimate death of his own humanity. This death is capable of affecting “the very ‘bottom’ of a person” and causes the person to turn from a being-for-oneself into a being-against-oneself.¹²⁰ The most tragic of all, this death goes by one name only—despair. And it is the essential hope that becomes the only defense of man against “a lapse into despair.”¹²¹

Since hope can always be somehow betrayed by man, and such occurrences are very frequent and painful, Tischner believes that it is not man, but God who has the last word in the philosophy of hope. Seeing evil rampant all around him, man even tends to doubt whether he is good by nature. Is damnation then the only prospect for man?¹²² There is no hope for the damned. Why is that so?, asks Tischner. “Because despair was preceded by radical doubt—doubt over ‘value’, over ‘good’, which hope might put under protection.”¹²³ To fall into despair is to hit rock bottom. The only possible way for a man to pick himself up is when he becomes reconciled with God.¹²⁴ This reconciliation involves justification of man. Man needs to be justified, because only then can he understand that his existence is valuable, that he is worthy of something, that he is “worthy of hope” of God’s goodness.¹²⁵ Anticipating our later analysis of Józef Tischner’s philosophy of man, concerned above all with the agathological dimension of various types of human drama, let us quote Tischner’s following words: “The essence of the drama involving God lies in the fact that God is Goodness and man is a sinner.” The chasm intervening between good and evil is larger than the chasm intervening between the infinity and finiteness of being. The chasm can be bridged by justification.”¹²⁶ It is no mere forgiveness; there are no reasons for it. It is a self-revelation of God—absolute Goodness. By relying on it, man can rebuild himself. This happens in no other way but through hope entrustment: “I entrust my hope to you.”¹²⁷

Philosophy of man in the light of thinking in values constitutes a significant, but—as it has already been stated—only the first stage of Józef Tischner’s original insight into man. In the development of his original project of philosophical anthropology Tischner never abandoned the theme of thinking in values. Still, the axiological horizon of the understanding of man who wants to travel down life paths clearly mapped out by values will be problematized by the discovery of the agathological horizon, within which—let us restate that—a dramatic encounter between good and evil takes place. The dramatic tension of this encounter has already been mentioned in the presentation of the Tischnerian philosophy of hope. At this point it is noteworthy that only high problematization of thinking in values will show the way Tischner reaches the peaks of metaphysical thinking about man. And it is only this thinking—ultimately turning out to be thinking in good—that will afford a definitive justification for the necessity to think and act in values.

4.3. The Philosophy of man as a philosophy of human drama

Tischner delivered his first lectures entirely devoted to the philosophy of human drama as early as the beginning of the 1980s.¹²⁸ However, the first work which was a representative exposition of the main themes in the philosophy of drama was first published in German by the prestigious Wilhelm Fink Verlag,¹²⁹ and only a few months later, in 1990, a Polish edition of this work was released in the Parisian series of Éditions du Dialogue.¹³⁰

The context of the discovery of the category of drama

His intellectual adventure involving prominent representatives of European, and in particular modern and contemporary philosophy left Tischner firmly convinced that every great philosophy principally revolved around one word, one idea, one intuition, one original experience which constitutes a key to in-depth understanding of the object of research undertaken by the philosopher. What particularly confirmed Tischner in this conviction was his study of Martin Heidegger’s fundamental ontology,¹³¹ which was critical and yet aroused a lot of fascination in him. In The Philosophy of Drama Tischner put it straight: “Use should be made of a word as a bridge leading to things. A question should be asked about the reality, the thing that the word points to.”¹³² At some stage of his philosophical investigations Tischner suddenly discovered this word, one word—the key to understanding the reality that is a man’s life. The context in which the discovery of this most important word was made is undoubtedly noteworthy. As Tischner himself explained, he stumbled upon it by pure chance. The pure chance that Tischner meant was becoming employed at the Ludwik Solski Academy of Dramatic Arts in Krakow during the difficult time of the Polish martial law. He said:

It is hard for me to put my finger on it, but chances play quite an important role in the development of the philosophy in question. … I can hardly imagine coming up with an idea of the philosophy of drama if I hadn’t been employed to give lectures at the dramatic arts school. And yet this discovery was so close, so handy that it was actually calling for me to make it. … What I am talking about makes me think of the following image: there are running horses and it is only up to man which horse he chooses to jump onto.¹³³

It was during those lectures directed at the students and lecturers at the Faculty of Direction and Drama that Tischner presented phenomenological descriptions of the dramatic plexus of good and evil, truth and an illusion of truth, beauty and ugliness, fidelity and betrayal, freedom and enslavement. He would discover this plexus, especially of good and evil, in the history of European literature, e.g. oeuvre by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Antigone by Sophocles, works of Greek mythology (the story of Agamemnon and his daughter Iphigenia, the story of Oedipus), biblical descriptions of Abraham’s sacrifice and Job’s suffering, and Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s play entitled Life is a Dream. At the same time, the perspective of Tischner’s understanding of the metaphor of drama was demarcated by his analyses of numerous works, particularly by Plato, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Lévinas.¹³⁴

It should also be noted that this fortuitous discovery of the category of drama in his endeavor to provide an insightful answer to the question of “who man is” becomes intrinsic to Józef Tischner’s critical debate with all of the anthropological tradition of European philosophy. Beginning with the analysis of Aristotle’s¹³⁵ stance and ending with Heidegger,¹³⁶ Tischner does not claim that the ontology-dominated anthropological thought proposes an erroneous concept of man. However, he holds a conviction, which he justifies in his writings, that history of philosophy provides us with a variety of one-sided and hence oversimplified definitions of man, which serve as an application of a general theory of being.¹³⁷ Tischner is of the opinion that the most in-depth description of the essence of man can be provided only with the aid of the category of drama, thanks to which philosophy of man can free itself from the shackles of ontology. This liberation also means that philosophy of man, which is founded on the category of drama, “cannot stand outside human drama …, but must be its integral part.”¹³⁸

A formal description of man as a subject of drama

“By illuminating human existence step by step” with the aid of the category of drama,¹³⁹ Tischner heavily draws from philosophy of dialogue sensu largo such expressions as an encounter, reciprocity, dialogue, being through each other and thanks to each other, as well as the idea of freedom and God, the same dramatic thread binding people for better and for worse.¹⁴⁰ While applying this array of concepts to his own philosophy of man, Tischner states that drama “points to man. Man’s manner of living consists in taking part in drama—he is a dramatic being. There is no other manner of living.”¹⁴¹ It is therefore clear that in Tischner’s view, the dramatic tension, or even the tragedy of existence, the internal dispute that man experiences within the axiological horizon of his existence does not take place in any other way but in the presence of the Other—both another man and God. This dramatic and dialogic concept of man expresses the whole of earthly living. This concept also proves that in his philosophical reflection on the manner of human existence, Tischner not only stops at the external, man-objectifying perspective, but—following in Franz Rosenzweig’s footsteps¹⁴²—hermeneutically, that is intelligently elucidates both the idea of humanity and human experiences contained therein. It is only in this intelligent approach to man that the truth about him as a dramatic existence becomes revealed. In other words, man himself comes to the fore in the hermeneutics applied by Tischner, one who “understands himself through his own drama and desires others to understand him like this.”¹⁴³ That is what Tischner speaks about in one of the interviews he gave with regard to the publication of his last and tremendously significant work on his philosophy of man.¹⁴⁴ In it, in the context of the exposition of the drama of human existence we read the following:

As we know, in ontology, at the third level of abstraction, beauty, truth and good convertuntur (are interchangeable). But we do not live at the third level of abstraction. In our lives the three “values” are in a state of strife. The drama of the truth is not a drama of good, much less a drama of beauty. The same applies to the drama of good and evil. Evil can be beautiful as well. The truth is not always “good.” In a situation like this, man has to choose where to look for his “justification.” Among others, that is what the drama of his existence is about.¹⁴⁵

In his formal description of drama, Tischner points to the three factors without which it would be impossible to speak about man as a dramatic existence. They are the elapsing time of drama and two openings: to the scene of drama and to the “Other.”¹⁴⁶

The dramatic time is not a kind of time that physics treats of, nor is it a time of flora and fauna—a time of giving birth, development and death, nor is it a time of internal consciousness as described by Husserl. According to Tischner, the dramatic time binds participants in one and the same dramatic thread; it is not so much present in them, but rather between them, between their questions and answers; it is characterized by continuity and irreversibility—it cannot be reversed. Thanks to its time, drama runs from the past, through the present and towards some future that cannot be known at once. As he sums up the introductory description of the dramatic time, Tischner writes: “the continuity of our time is in a way the substance of drama,”¹⁴⁷ and so it is paradoxically something permanent in the human drama, without which the drama would not be conceivable or possible in the first place; it could not come into being.

The scene of drama is the world, with people’s lives, a plane of encounters and partings. Tischner stresses that the stage at man’s feet “is a sphere of freedom, in which man searches for a home, bread and God, and where he finds a graveyard.”¹⁴⁸ Man’s basic attitude towards the stage is an attitude of intentional objectivization.¹⁴⁹ And so man opens up to the stage by objectifying it, filling it with objects, but in this filling process he not infrequently objectifies other people, turning them into a part of the stage.

The most fundamental opening of a man as a dramatic being is the dialogic opening—an act of opening up to the “Other.”¹⁵⁰ As a participant in the same drama as mine he is, as Ferdinand Ebner would call it, in his word, through a word and as a word,¹⁵¹ always a specific You to my I. As Tischner stresses, the relation between the two subjects of drama is special, as it points to the form of every participation in every drama.

Another man faces me through some claim, as a result of which a sense of obligation rises in me. … Thus your question reaches my ears. There is a moment of silence, of the shared present. You are awaiting an answer. An answer needs to be given. This needs to is crucial. Thanks to it and in it you are by my side.¹⁵²

Tischner places great emphasis on the fact that man is a subject of drama, which means that he takes part in it in a different way than things belonging to the scene. And the point is not whether the man takes part in drama as a doctor or lawyer, a worker or intellectual, a woman or a man, a child, a youth or an old man. Irrespective of his familial, social or professional status, or our perception of man, as a subject of drama he inevitably experiences being entangled in the insurmountable tensions between good and evil, the truth and a lie—in a word: between justification of oneself in existence or a lack thereof, between deliverance and damnation, between benediction and a curse, between the redemption of one’s humanity and its perdition, doom. In accordance with this tension—which is not always fully comprehensible in its content to man—a man lives, thinks, plans his conduct, experiences himself and other people,¹⁵³ and even God Himself.¹⁵⁴ Above, I have tentatively presented this tension, this drama of human existence as a conflict of values in human life. Tischner expresses this drama in a general form which is an important point of reference in his analysis of particular examples of human dramas: “Taking part in some drama, a man is more or less aware that—metaphorically speaking—his doom or salvation is in his hands. To be a dramatic being means to believe—truly or falsely—that the doom or salvation is in human hands.”¹⁵⁵ As he refers in The Philosophy of Drama to various examples of human dramas, Tischner discerns one dramatic thread common to them—a man’s struggle over himself. On the one hand, the Polish philosopher describes a man’s desire to save himself from the perdition of his humanity by participating in beauty, the truth and good. On the other hand, Tischner points to roaming—joint roaming engaged in by two drama subjects on life paths. While the effect of this shared activity of roaming in the byways of the truth, good and beauty may be the salvation of man by good, the truth and beauty, a different situation is possible: as a result of man’s being embroiled in the dramatic tension between good and evil, truth and falsehood, beauty and ugliness, man is threatened with doom and the attendant awareness of despair and damnation. The point is that the result of this struggle over oneself ultimately rests only on man himself construed by Tischner as a person, that is a being-for-oneself, who in the drama wants to familiarize himself for himself because of the hope of salvation of his humanity.¹⁵⁶ And this depends on free choices, decisions, accepting or giving up responsibility for the “Other.”

The question of the “turn”: The agathological experience as a source of axiological experience

Tischner’s turn to the category of drama, which is the key word in the original conception of human existence, should not be treated in terms of a turn beyond which Tischner would create a philosophical anthropology that was all-new in comparison to the previously championed, axiologically-tinged philosophy of man. As regards the Tischnerian philosophy of man, one can legitimately speak about a “turn” in the sense that Tischner made some changes to the accents, the order of aspects or even the perspectives of conceptualizing one and the same, specific man. In early Tischner, the point of reference in this conceptualization is value, and by extension—an axiological horizon. But when Tischner terms man, in respect to his origins, a dramatic being, then the proper point of reference in the conception of a dramatic existence is good and, by extension, an agathological horizon. To some extent, these two horizons overlap in the sense that they are inextricably linked with each other in a specific man’s life. Already in Thinking in Values, a widely-read book and one of the most important works by early Tischner, a close link between these two horizons is revealed. Let us briefly pay attention to the profound connection between these two horizons.

Tischner would always willingly refer to Platonic philosophy and heavily drew on the wealth of its concepts. The metaphor of the cave in Plato’s Republic, the situation of the imprisoned people, as well as the Platonic description of the circumstances of Socrates’ death, the ancient Greek myth of Prometheus exerted considerable influence on the Tischnerian quest for the true origins of the axiological experience, and hence its original and most profound dimension: “Prometheus is hanging nailed to the wall, but why, what for? We all live in a cave full of shadows. What have we been chained like this for? Why do the just suffer? What was the reason for the manner of Socrates’ death?”¹⁵⁷ It is Tischner’s conviction that without the dramatic question of “why,” “what for,” man will not be able to fully comprehend any axiological experiences affecting him. Without these questions pointing to the true origins of axiology, man will not be able to justify his thinking and acting in values. Let us take note of the Polish philosopher’s passage from his analyses, which is so vital for these issues:

The primary axiological experience does not tell us that there should be something that is not there. Neither does it tell us that we should do something, or abandon something. The primary is only this: there is something that should not be there. … Why? This question has one simple origin—light coming from good. In Greek ‘good’ is called agathon. The experience we are trying to describe is a radical agathological experience.¹⁵⁸

The instrumental character of the category of an encounter

To describe this radical experience the Polish philosopher will use the category of “an encounter with the Other.” In the history of the reception of this Krakow-based philosopher for some time he even used to be called a philosopher of an encounter. It was not uncommon to come across an opinion whereby the central place in his philosophy was taken exactly by the concept of “an encounter.” However, Tischner resolutely distances himself from such an opinion. There is a number of his statements about the subject of encounters which substantiate the claim that the concept of encounters is for him above all a tool with which he wants to get to the axiological-agathological nucleus of human existence. Let us take note of some of his statements:

An encounter is an event. An encounter engenders some drama. … As we proceed through an encounter, we know this with certainty: the Other exists, he is different, and he is transcendent. We also know something else: he and I are in the sphere of good and evil, value and disvalue. … To encounter means something more and something else than to see, hear or shake someone’s hand. … To encounter means to get to directly see the tragic permeating all the modes of being of the Other.¹⁵⁹

The tragic of the human … is a mobile plexus of that which … is good and that which is evil, that which is valuable and that which is capable of destroying value; a plexus of loftiness and a threat of degradation, life and death, youth and evanescence, happiness and possible misery. … This unusual plexus of values and that which is capable of destroying value is thought-provoking.”¹⁶⁰ An image of the instrumental character of an encounter becomes clearer and clearer in these quotations. It is in an encounter that man becomes more or less acutely aware of that which should not be there, that which for a man is a real problem in need of solving. An encounter makes us experience the “problematization” of reality.¹⁶¹ In other words, the presence of another man provokes our thought, and particularly our critical thought that manifests itself exactly in the problematization of the world. While distancing himself from Descartes, but accepting Lévinas’ thinking style as his own, Tischner openly states as follows: “For me the fundamental thing is that the other is the origin of thinking. Nothing is as thought-provoking as an encounter with another man.¹⁶² It is exactly when we are faced with the other that we realize some problem, because we pose a question “how is it possible”¹⁶³ that there is something that should not be there. We stand in amazement but at the same time we rebel against that which is but should not be. Let us restate that: Tischner recognizes agathology—a study of good—which contains thinking filled with amazement and rebellion against threats to good, in some kind of original experience. It is an “experience of another man”¹⁶⁴ that takes place in an encounter. It is in the interhuman encounter that we begin to understand the phenomenon of the tragic—that mobile plexus, which Tischner mentions, of value and disvalue, a link between good and evil, beauty and ugliness, truth and falsehood. On the one hand, this plexus provokes the question of “how is this possible,” while on the other hand it engenders a question of how structured a man should be to be able to take part in drama. Tischner’s question about the role of an encounter in the understanding of man is therefore a question about the origin of this understanding. But this question does not indicate that the main object of Tischner’s interest is first and foremost an “encounter.” He is above all interested in—to use Heidegger’s phrase—the true ground out of which an encounter with the other emerges to provoke thought. The ground is man. In other words, Tischner above all concentrates on man, the subject of an encounter, the subject of drama. Let us take note of his words which were penned exactly in the spirit of Heidegger:¹⁶⁵

I am using a broadly-defined method of transcendental analysis. It looks like this: first we look for a source experience (in this case it is an encounter on the road), and once we have this “source,” then the description of the experience needs to be supplemented with a question: what structure should the ground have for a water source to appear? I am not toying with a question of what kind of a source that is, where the water is flowing and in what direction. I am asking about what kind of ground can a source spring up from. Well, the source is an encounter, and the ground is the subject—the encounterer. I am asking about the way he needs to be structured to be able to encounter the other. I am asking about “I,” about the size of his soul, about the way he sees and hears things, about his experience of good and evil, I am asking about the axiological and agathological “I.” That is what I am first and foremost interested in.¹⁶⁶

Hence, at the very heart of phenomenological insight above all stands man, and the very encounter is an extremely important medium of this insight. An encounter—writes Tischner—is about “opening up the agathological horizon of interhuman experience.”¹⁶⁷ Thus arises the possibility of agathology; thus also arises the possibility of a human person experiencing both another person and himself from the most primal perspective, that is from the perspective of good and evil. Man is always and in the first place concerned about some good and threatening evil, and understanding anything else in human life is to some extent only a result of the experience of good and evil. The agathological horizon, which on the one hand is a condition for an encounter taking place while on the other hand it manifests itself only in the encounter,¹⁶⁸ is a special horizon, likened by Tischner to a hierarchically structured space. As we read: “The agathological horizon is a horizon within which all the manifestations of the other and of me are governed by a peculiar logos—the logos of good and evil, of that which is better and that which is worse, of an up and a down, victory and failure, salvation and damnation.”¹⁶⁹ The whole dramatic concept of man is expressed in Tischner’s philosophy in a gradual fine-specification of this horizon, and by extension a fine-specification of the agathological experience. Therefore, in Tischner’s oeuvre the primal conception of man is about some dynamic that climaxed only in the philosophical work written at the end of his life.¹⁷⁰ Noteworthily, the agathology developed by Tischner served as his very innovative and original contribution to the contemporary philosophy of man sensu largo. As he goes further than Heidegger and even further than Lévinas, Tischner proves that it is not findings in the field of fundamental ontology, nor ethical experiences that enable man’s most primal experience, but it is possible primarily because of the agathological experience,¹⁷¹ where ultimately good does not have to lose to evil, and where man’s existence does not have to be evil, and so can be experienced in accordance with the hope of salvation.¹⁷² It is precisely the agathological experience, which takes place and at the same time manifests itself in no other manner than only in an encounter of persons, that is in Tischner’s philosophy a key to understanding man as a dramatic being.

All that has been stated so far needs to be supplemented with yet another conclusion which directly concerns the problem of an encounter and constitutes a vital contribution to man’s agathology. Highly inspired by Lévinas, Tischner, in his philosophy, refers to the metaphor of the face. As we encounter another man, we encounter him in no other way than “in his face.”¹⁷³ Such an encounter is the climax to an experience of the “Other.” In Tischner’s view, the face, which reveals the truth about a man, is not—unlike in Lévinas—only of a passive character, and so it does not only recount the lot of a widow, an orphan or a foreigner, describing their miserable lives. The face that Tischner writes about is of a thoroughly active character as well. This means that the face not only recounts, but above all responds to misery and harm—the face wants to overcome all evil that afflicts and destroys man. In his exposition of the phenomenon of the face, which obviously should not be anatomically comprehended as a body part, Tischner emphasizes: “The face manifests itself as a gift of the agathological horizon—the horizon within which good and evil take on the form of drama, and the drama foreshadows a possibility of man’s tragedy or victory. In the drama, unlike in the domain of concepts, good and evil are not positioned far from each other, but are intertwined in shared time, shared space, in one and the same man.”¹⁷⁴ It is precisely thanks to good and evil that a revelation of the face is possible. On the one hand, the face displays unique sublimity, man’s grandeur, as it holds reflections of perfect human good, truth and beauty. On the other hand, it embodies the fragility of human life, bears hallmarks of the pain of being lost and manifold human misery, including his evanescence and dying. The face is active, dynamic and simply capable of rebellion in the sense that it reacts, somehow responds to all kinds of misery and harm that afflict man. With regard to this Tischner writes: “The logos of the face is a manner in which man overcomes the perspective of the tragic which in the form of personal evil, pain and harm has stormed into his existence. The face is the form of human disagreement with true life being absent.”¹⁷⁵ It is precisely this disagreement that manifests itself in amazement and rebellion. By referring to the examples of various dramatic encounters, say, in the Bible or Dostoevsky’s novels, Tischner discovers the origins of amazement and rebellion. The “Other”—encountered in his face within the agathological horizon—is neither an embodiment of the triumph of good, nor an embodiment of the triumph of evil. He is one, observes Tischner, in whom good has been exposed to the action of evil. It is a kind of situation that engenders in us amazement expressed in a rebellious question: how is this possible? “In a question like this, rebellion becomes interspersed with acceptance. We rebel against leaving good at the mercy of evil, while we accept good threatened with evil.¹⁷⁶ Embedded in the experience of the face, the issues concerned with amazement and rebellion enable Tischner to recognize human existence as the mystery of the plexus of good and evil. This mysterious link provokes an important question about the reason for existence: “to exist—is that good or evil?”¹⁷⁷

The key to the answer to this thoroughly metaphysical question is exactly the face as seen above all from the perspective of good. “The face is an expression of existential movement in which man endeavors to justify the fact that he is, consigning his existence to the protection of hope-giving good. This is because man believes: only good can rescue.”¹⁷⁸ But this faith in the drama of an encounter is many a time put to a very harsh test, which Tischner identifies in the human experience of tragedy.

Drama as a possibility of tragedy

An important result of the multi-faceted analyses of the agathological experience is Tischner’s insight into the essence of human tragedy, and by extension an insight into the nature of good and evil. Let us first pay attention to the problem of good. The interhuman dialogue undoubtedly shows the mode of existence of good, which man experiences and which he can partake in. No matter how dramatic dialogue might be, it is always about something unusually lofty, about striking up reciprocity, which is reciprocity from the perspective of good.¹⁷⁹ After all, dialogue is about reciprocal recognition of values, and eventually about understanding and communication.¹⁸⁰ In dialogue as the basic expression of drama, good serves as its axiom. However, Tischner does not view it as a predetermined axiom of reason, because good cannot be reasoned out. Instead, Tischner presents it as good which “must be experienced,”¹⁸¹ as rather audible than visible. “The voice of good permeates through the world noise to call man to something absolute. In this sphere, thinking only plays a preparatory role: it is to prepare the ears for hearing. It achieves its aim by criticizing the voices that drown out the voice of good.”¹⁸² The poetic and religious figurative devices that Tischner draws on to present good as visible, but above all as audible, enable the proper recognition of the nature of good. It wants to come into being, to become realized. As something audible, good in its existence wants to break through the hubbub of this world and reach out to man, to arouse a calling in him for something absolutely extraordinary. This calling is about letting good be in spite of all manner of adversities, about discerning the reason for its existence, about giving justice to it in everyday life, which consequently leads to the triumph of good over all that is in contradiction with good. That is what the triumph of good in man’s life is about. Tischner writes: “Good is that which by nature strives to come into being. To let good be means to give justice to it. Good which has come into being in defiance of evil is heroic good.”¹⁸³ The triumph of good in man’s life at the same time serves as justification of the existence of man himself and as revelation of the true meaning of his life. Man exists to overcome evil with good. Tischner presents the symbols of this overcoming, this choice of good in an interhuman encounter in the metaphor of a drama scene, the promised land—the land of promise and hope, the land to be developed.¹⁸⁴ The effect of land development is a home—space most cherished by man, where he can experience true freedom, where he can be his true self and make himself at home, where he can—to use Bergson’s words—take possession of himself. The effect of land development is also a workshop—a space which is founded on reciprocity and collaboration, and in which man puts down roots in this world.¹⁸⁵ In this context, Tischner also writes about a church—a space in which good is brought out in man, thereby opening up new horizons for encounters, particularly with God. Tischner mentions another fruit of land development—a construction of a graveyard, a space in which the ancestors’ heritage is undertaken, and where man can begin to put his earthly life in some sound perspective.

But because it is in the sphere of an encounter, within the agathological horizon, that the dramatic dimension of human existence comes to the fore, the experience of good connects with the experience of evil—evil can also sneak into the sphere of good as something external to man, and which man can quickly assimilate, confusing evil with some kind of good that he desires. The agathological insight into the dramatic dimension of human existence enables Tischner to say that it is “existence problematized in its value by in an irremovable perspective of tragedy.”¹⁸⁶ And in fact the essence of tragedy consists in evil triumphing over good. “Instead of perishing, evil prevails. … The tragedy ends in an event in which good reveals its powerlessness in a feud with evil. … Good beings confront each other as enemies and therein lies evil. … So before good becomes an opponent of another good, evil barges in between them and becomes the principal rule of tragedy.” As a result of the triumph of evil, instead of experiencing the promised land, man experiences the land of refusal, home becomes only a shelter from enemies, where one cannot make himself at home, where there is no room for reciprocity.¹⁸⁷ As a result of the triumph of evil, the workshop turns into penal servitude, and the world of work into a world of curse. Churches turn into places of retaliation, condemnation tribunals for those who are either absent from churches or are standing next to them. Consequently, churches become increasingly deserted, and the quest for God is effected through running away from the sight of a fellow man. As a result of the triumph of evil, the graveyard too changes its meaning—it takes on the form of retaliation against the departed and obliteration of their traces. Entwined in interhuman evil, the symbolism of the graveyard portrays only irreverence and consequently abandonment of the forefathers’ heritage, breaking free from one’s own history.¹⁸⁸

An in-depth analysis of the dialectic of good and evil enables Tischner to gain an insight into the very nature of evil.¹⁸⁹ The Polish philosopher is firmly convinced that evil does not emerge in relation to the scene, nor is it a part of the realm of intention. Unlike misery,¹⁹⁰ evil always has a dialogic dimension. Like good, evil appears along the line of reference of a person, that is a subject of drama, to other persons: to “God, people, as well as in reference to himself.”¹⁹¹ Like in classical metaphysics, Tischner holds that evil is not an object or a thing; in short, it is not a being. This, however, does not mean that it is nothing. In his philosophy, Tischner describes evil as an apparition, something else than being or non-being. “Between being and non-being there is something ‘third’—a phenomenon, and more precisely: an apparition. Even though evil does not really exist, it ‘appears.’ In its ‘apparent form’ it is scary or tempting, and often both scary and tempting at the same time. It is terrifying in its monstrosity, and tempting in its appearances of beauty. Construed as an apparition, evil holds some kind of untruth—an illusion and a lie.”¹⁹² On the level of illusion and lie, evil blocks and drowns out the presence of truth, and that is why it so radically hinders an encounter between people. Tischner calls the tortuous roads of the dialogic linkage between the truth and a lie, where people experience the ambiguity of the truth, their roads of roaming. On such roads, some find the truth to be the path leading to salvation of their lives, while others seek their own salvation in lies.¹⁹³ Roaming is also possible in the realm of beauty, which remains in a state of dramatic tension in relation to ugliness. That is why it can be experienced in its ambiguous role as both familiar and hostile, as that which attracts and repulses, which makes one happy and plunges one into misery, which is cruel and kind. And so, even if in its ambiguity it may sometimes enable an interhuman encounter, but then it may lead people astray, where they can no longer be themselves again.¹⁹⁴ Similarly, roaming in the elements of good and evil does not help man find the meaning of his life, or justify his own existence. The ambiguity of good and evil, which becomes apparent in the byways of interhuman encounters ultimately also causes a man to run away from a fellow being.¹⁹⁵ By referring to Camus, Nietzsche and Shakespeare, but in particular to Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Tischner at great length describes man’s roamings in the realm of beauty, truth and good. These roamings, which after all always take place in the interhuman encounter, may at first appear—as Tischner observes—as a common route of search for hope of man’s salvation. Ultimately, however, it is a route of man’s gradual assimilation of evil, which as an apparition appears in the form of man-destroying temptation and threat.¹⁹⁶

Tischner finds the biblical scene of temptation, which features the one who tempts, the one who is tempted and that which is the object of temptation to be the basic context in which to discover the essence of temptation. It is precisely at the moment of temptation that man is under a delusion and so loses a clear view of good and evil, as a result of which he lets the tempter ensnare him in evil that he does not want, thereby falling prey to it. In Tischner’s own words: “The tempter uses persuasion. A temptation is a kind of promise—a perverse promise that promises good, but offers evil. … The tempted labors under some kind of delusion, or at least imagines that what he inclines towards is his good. … evil, in order to be attractive, takes on a foreign face—the face of good. It engages in tempting not as evil, but as its opposite.”¹⁹⁷ The time of temptation is in fact a time of hope of man’s assimilation of good, which he desires, because he finds it dear, gentle and violence-free. And so in temptation, which—as Tischner emphasizes—can be expressed in terms of adulation, a challenge from accusers or a call to find out if evil is really evil,¹⁹⁸ evil masquerading as good reaches man in a gentle and violence-free manner so that man does not feel any kind of threat on its part and might readily choose it. For evil to occur, for tragedy, that is a triumph of evil over good to take place, man himself needs to consent to it, choose it, assimilate it and make it part of his life. Until this choice is made, there is some kind of uncertainty in man. Certainty comes only after the choice of evil has been made. It is a kind of certainty in which man suddenly discovers that he has paradoxically fallen victim to his own choice: he is a victim of evil and feels like a betrayed being. Tischner writes: “Evil in its basic sense, essential evil, dialogic evil—manifests itself as betrayal.”¹⁹⁹ By choosing betrayal, man betrays not only himself, but others and even God Himself. Self-betrayal is a special kind of betrayal—painful awareness of the chosen evil erroneously recognized as good makes man feel unworthy of his existence, and so he lapses into despair. In it, man’s only hope is hope of death, but it does not come. Inspired by Kierkegaard’s philosophy of existence, Tischner writes that in despair man “lives scorned by people, God and himself. Being evil, he has made his existence evil. Still, he does not die.”²⁰⁰

When Tischner analyses evil from its threatening aspect, he also—like in the case of a temptation—pays attention to the moment at which man assimilates some evil. In a way, a threat is helpless in the face of man; it cannot destroy him if he himself does not destroy himself by accepting evil as his own.²⁰¹ At the same time—like in the case of a temptation—Tischner takes a close look at human hope in a situation of threat. The point is that in the case of a temptation, the hope of good rises in man, even though it is in fact evil that is masquerading as good. In the case of a threat that comes from the “Other,” it is difficult to talk about rising hope. A threat, which ultimately is “a denial of a right to exist,”²⁰² rather upsets hope; it just takes away hope from a man,²⁰³ because it threatens him with damnation—it denies him the right to exist. Pointing to the axiological consequences of evil present in the threat, Tischner writes: “as a matter of fact I realize that I should not exist. … I am not worthy of existence, a name, the ground under my feet, or answers to the questions I ask to others.”²⁰⁴ In the drama of an interhuman encounter, good is sometimes ultimately drowned out, shut out by evil, which in its triumph over good takes the form of betrayal and cries out: “you are evil and you have no right to exist,”²⁰⁵ “you are a nonentity,”²⁰⁶ “you are damned.”²⁰⁷ Instead of recognition, the voice of damnation is heard. That is why the one the voice is directed at complains: “I am a betrayed being. Everything I am experiencing here serves to confirm the truth about the betrayal. … It is better not to exist than live a betrayed existence.”²⁰⁸ In this context, the last word in the drama is a word of betrayal, a word of damnation described by Tischner in so many different ways—particularly aesthetic, political and, last but not least, religious damnation, which in Tischner’s view is always a consequence of human betrayal.²⁰⁹ According to the Tischnerian philosophy of drama, man’s tragedy is ultimately that man alone as a subject of drama is too weak to be able—thanks to himself and on his own—to raise himself out of the state of damnation, thereby single-handedly leading to the triumph of good over evil.

Agathology as the metaphysics of man

Tischner called the agathological experience a radical metaphysical experience. The experience of good constantly threatened with evil as well as the attendant question of “how is this possible?” coupled with the conclusion “this should not be like that”²¹⁰ cause man to put question marks over his existence. Tischner is convinced that this experience teaches us to distinguish “fullness from unfullness, existence from essence, form from matter, cause from effect.”²¹¹ Tischner clearly expresses the thought about the metaphysical significance of the agathological experience exactly in the non-ontological description of evil as an apparition which—like good—exists outside being and non-being. “One cannot say that evil is something real, because if it were, then it could not be tempting to be become realized. One cannot say that evil does not exist, because that which does not exist cannot be threatening, arouse fear or frighten.”²¹² In some other place, Tischner notes that good and evil, while acting as a condition for man’s justified or unjustified existence, “constitute true metaphysics of human existence; they are what meta-ta-physika is.”²¹³

In a polemic with Martin Heidegger about the conception of the human world, Tischner accuses him of disregarding the highly complicated history of the linkage between the idea of good and the idea of evil. According to Tischner, it is precisely this complicated history that is crucial to providing the answer to the question of who man is: “What is, however, missing in the world [of Heidegger—J.J.] is that which is most ‘human’: there is no home, in which human good is born, there is no church, in which man meets God, there is no graveyard, in which he meets the departed. In order to discover the home, church or graveyard, one needs to abandon the plane of the ‘meaning of being’ and rise to the level of good and evil—to agathology, which is the core of metaphysics.”²¹⁴

The agathological experience, defined by Tischner as a radical metaphysical experience, reveals the tragic of the human being.²¹⁵ According to the Krakow-based philosopher, as a metaphysical experience of human existence in the light of good, it is inseparable from the axiological experience, which concerns events in the light of that which is valuable.²¹⁶ It is inseparable in the sense that agathology is a foundation for axiology, and therefore is a foundation for such a planning of life that would allow the triumph of good over evil, averting a possible tragedy resulting from both man’s helplessness in the face of evil, and a lack of due knowledge about the delusion watering down the radical difference between good and evil.²¹⁷

As Tischner sums up this issue, he notes:

That which is agathological makes the very existence a problem. That which is axiological reveals ways of deliverance. That which is agathological throws man off his usual day-and-night rhythm and plunges him into a borderline situation in which freedom accepts or rejects itself, reason wants or does not want to be reason, conscience disavows or avows itself. That which is axiological is the space in which freedom, reason and conscience operate.²¹⁸

In this panoramic portrayal of the interhuman drama, which exposes the linkage between the agathological horizon and the axiological perspective, man’s amazement and rebellion and the project of his dynamic action, Tischner presents man within the limits of his humanity. These limits are on the one hand demarcated by the question of “who I am,” while on the other hand, they are demarcated by the two possibilities in the human life—damnation or deliverance/redemption. As we already know, the interhuman drama oftentimes ends in tragedy, a triumph of evil over good, the metaphorical “I am betrayed.” The awareness of damnation proves to be a man’s sorry state.

That is why on the last page of his Philosophy of Drama, Tischner makes it all plain: for good to be able to prevail, for the state of damnation to give up its place to the state of justification in existence, without which man cannot be happy, there is a need for a man’s special metaphysical opening up to Good spelt with a capital “G,” going beyond himself and towards such Good: “Happiness arrives when man chooses Good over evil that pulls him under. By choosing Good that offers itself to him, man becomes happy.”²¹⁹ Let us note that in this sentence Tischner speaks about a man-creator who creates his own happiness by choosing Good of a higher order. But this choice is only possible because it is Good that first offers itself to man, that is it chooses him. Intentionally employing the poetics of religious metaphor, Tischner describes personal Good, “the Everlasting Heart,” which “attracts man.”²²⁰ This remark of Tischner’s to some extent reveals the metaphysical project of his philosophy of man—a project viewed from the perspective of the end point of this philosophy. At the starting point Tischner emphasized that man’s most important drama is his drama involving God, only a fraction of which is constituted by man’s any other drama or any other dramatic thread.²²¹ However, the entire, multi-faceted description of man’s drama contained in the work entitled The Philosophy of Drama. Introduction is in fact a testimony to Tischner’s silence about God. Arguably, the proposition whereby this multi-faceted description is a description of God’s unobtrusive hiding might even be legitimate; in a case like this God would only reveal himself fully when man reaches a borderline moment: in his tragic self-knowledge—in his awareness of damnation. We are dealing here with a logic of the philosophy of man which at the same time is a logic of the philosophy of hidden God. Viewed from this perspective, the significance of Tischner’s standpoint is clear when he responds to a statement whereby there is not much place for God in his philosophy of man, by saying something to the Heideggerian effect: “May everyone be as silent about God as I am! I speak about that which I see, and not about that which I think that I will see. When I do philosophy of man and try to show this man in his maximum opening up to God, do I keep silent about God?!”²²²

Therefore, for a man to be able to fully answer the posed question of “who am I?,” and not for a possibility of damnation, but a possibility of salvation, that is justification in existence to become realized, and for hope to be fulfilled, Tischner unambiguously suggests that man, in understanding of himself, rise above the level of only interhuman drama and bring his “fragile lot under the roof of Good that blesses him,”²²³ and in his relation to a human person be also able to open up to someone “third,” and turn to absolute Good. It is precisely in the second part of the philosophy of drama, that is The Controversy over the Existence of Man, that we encounter a particularly in-depth phenomenological description of this mysterious relation, which is grounded on the Good and which exists between man and God.

4.4. Agathology of man’s death and birth

Philosophical literature of the last hundred years proves that man, like never before, has become a great problem to himself. At the beginning of the second decade of the 20th century, one of the founding fathers of modern philosophical anthropology, which without a doubt was a particular achievement of the German philosophy, noticed that the three different vistas which lay alongside one another, offering understanding of man—a theological, metaphysical and natural one—engendered in man a maximum sense of his own problematic nature. Through such a standpoint, Max Scheler emphasized that despite a very rapid development of human sciences, in fact contemporary man knows less about who he really is than ever before. This situation, defined by Scheler as frightening to man himself, at the same time according to the German philosopher became a real challenge to contemporary philosophy, as well as an opportunity for man himself to once again courageously ask the question about who he in fact is, and what his essence is.²²⁴ However, instead of clear answers to these questions, some philosophers offered us, particularly in the second part of the 20th century, a proposition which was on the one hand shocking, while on the other aroused philosophical thinking about man from it slumbers: a proposition that man as a historical creature has died. Like Nietzsche, who in 1882 announced that the 19th century witnessed the death of the idea of God, in the 20th century the death of man was announced, that is the dying of his idea. This death proved to be a tragic consequence of the cultural death of God.²²⁵Let us remember that the one who particularly strongly eulogized the death of man was French philosopher and sociologist Michel Foucault. He wrote:

It turns out that God’s death and the last man are one problem: the last man is at the same time older and younger than God’s death; because he killed God, now he alone needs to be responsible for his own finiteness, but since it is in God’s death that man speaks, thinks, exists, the very killing is doomed. … Man will disappear.²²⁶

When we adopt this perspective in looking at the second part of the philosophy of drama, presented by Józef Tischner in his last great philosophical work, The Controversy over the Existence of Man, we can immediately see the true key to understanding this treatise, which is a difficult read and apparently very extensive in its problematic scope. However, one might get the impression that Tischner was putting the finishing touches to this work in a hurry, as if he was afraid that he might not be able to finish, by the time of his impending death, what he—as he himself stresses—wanted to write, that is: whether he would make time to “expose the areas of good in which man’s humanity that matures in drama takes its roots.”²²⁷ One might also say that the eponymous Controversy, which is so dramatic in its content, is plagued by a lack of one thematic thread, which considerably facilitated reading of the earlier work—The Philosophy of Drama. Anyway, the author of the Controversy himself notes in a critical manner: “my work gives the impression that I am leaping from branch to branch, but the branches are suspended in void.”²²⁸ He also asks a rhetorical question, as if he wanted in his philosophical testament to entrust his inheritors with the mission to continue the work he started: “Maybe the philosophy of drama needs to have a dramatic face? I don’t know. At any rate, a horizon for further reflection opens up.”²²⁹

And yet, this work is not chaotic, and surely it is not a treatise in which Tischner, as he leaps “from branch to branch,” only superficially touches upon such an important anthropological issue as the one concerned with the proper horizon of primal conception of man, who in the 20th century died a cultural death. As we already know, it is Tischner’s conviction that the horizon for primal conception of man is not first and foremost the horizon of ontology, but above all the horizon of agathology. It is within this horizon that Tischner paints a picture of a birth resp. rebirth of man threatened with death of his humanity.²³⁰ In my opinion, the tension between death and birth is the key to understanding The Controversy over the Existence of Man. Death and birth are two realities, between which Tischner enters with his study of good to engage in a dispute over the manner of human existence, to map out with thought and pen the paths leading to the salvation of humanity in man. In the Introduction to The Controversy... he writes: “My proposition is this: even if ‘man is dead’, which is a view held by some structuralists, this means that he existed, and if he did, then he can be reborn.”²³¹

Man’s death

In Józef Tischner’s opinion, thinking about man’s death appears above all on the plane of linguistic tension. This tension gives rise to a profound disintegration of the image of man, and consequently to a failure to fathom the mysterious nature of his life. The Polish philosopher even goes as far as to write about “a war of three languages.”²³² On the plane of thinking expressed in speech, the tragic effect of this “war” is a break-up of man’s ontic unity. As he writes about triple language, Tischner primarily thinks about the tension between the languages of ontology, awareness theory and agathology; this tension is to be blamed for the vagueness in understanding of man. Hence, firstly, the point is to oppose man’s ontic imperfection to God’s ontic perfection. Secondly, the point is to oppose man, who is aware that is a blend of love and hate, to God who is all Love. Thirdly, the point is to oppose man to God as absolute Good—after all, man is good but is inclined to evil. In this context, Tischner asks:

What language is capable of the most profound expression of the mystery of man—is it the language describing his ontology, or the language describing his awareness, or the language reaching down to the good and evil that dwell inside him? Language accompanies thinking. Questions about language are also questions about thinking. As a result of the linguistic vagueness, the triple language breaks up the image of man. It is not easy to put back together that which has been broken up. A broken image becomes a manifestation of the thought about “the death of man.”²³³

Therefore, it is necessary to say that the controversy over the existence of man takes place first on the plane of controversy over the choice of proper language in which man’s original self-experience could be best expressed. The whole of The Controversy over the Existence of Man is a testimony to the fact that in his philosophical insight into man’s existence Tischner is chiefly in favor of the language of agathology. It is with the aid of this language that he manages to demonstrate the origins of the concept of the death of man, which is no mean accomplishment. In the demonstration of these origins, where good is in a sense on the sidelines of man’s life, the crucial role is unfortunately played by evil, the many-sidedness of which, or its anatomy—one might say—is very thoroughly analyzed by Tischner.

The roads taken by the Krakow-based philosopher as he journeys to the land of man’s death are marked by such expressions as man’s powerlessness in the face of evil, his ignorance of evil, or his conscious choice of evil. As he begins his journey with a tour of a multi-story “inferno of Dante’s,” Tischner can see people who let themselves be beguiled by evil hiding in anger and betrayal, and who have experienced their powerlessness in the face of such evil, but have not let themselves be totally possessed by this dialogically-experienced evil, nor has it killed the last vestiges of humanity in them. And so Tischner writes:

Hell did not mean “death of man.” … Hell dwellers only yielded to evil and so they are rightly punished. Even though in their lives they gave in to “corporeal covetousness” and “pride of life,” neither covetousness, nor pride devoured them completely. There is “something” left in them, and this “something” is the warp and woof of their suffering. … Only a demon is a traitor by nature. … Since even a demon does not have total control over man, the concept of the “death of man” must not have been developed by Christianity.²³⁴

As he moves into the world of Descartes’ philosophy, Tischner finds there evil to be a result of human ignorance. The metaphor of evil genius contains an image of a lapse into untruth. A man who has been lied to does not know what he is doing. The tragic effect of such ignorance is first and foremost not an evil deed, but above all his participation in evil. It is precisely the metaphor of the evil genius that Tischner uses to expose the man-captivating participation in evil. He writes:

A lie clings to man, soaks into his reason, becomes his second nature. A lie has an enslaving power. … Before it makes its way into our deeds, evil stands behind our backs, penetrates inside, enters our eyes and ears, permeates our taste and touch, defines our sensitivity to the world, arouses desires and fears, imposes appropriate forms on the reason, enclosing it within ostensible obviousness. It is not the deed that is most important, but the field of participation.²³⁵

The concept of the death of man features in neither Dante’s nor Descartes’ philosophy. Admittedly, Descartes in detail describes the enslavement of reason by lies and superstitions, as a result of which interhuman hostility and historical evil sensu largo are on the rise, taking even the form of an anonymous lie. However, Tischner notes, in Descartes’ philosophy the idea of truthful God serves as a barrier to the “death of man.” It is above all God who acts as the true guarantor of human cognition of truth and capability to overcome all lies and superstitions. It is ultimately God who enables man to break free from the bondage of untruth.

According to Tischner, the Kantian concept of radical evil does not imply the idea of the death of man either. Radical evil as a deviation of human action from the moral principle does not mean that man has some ingrained, definitive predilection for evil. Evil, as described by Kant, does not kill humanity in man, because thanks to his good will he can fight against the evil inside him. Kant states: … a man is not a demon, though he understands demonism.”²³⁶ Tischner certainly does not burden Kant with responsibility for the propagation of the idea of the “death of man.” However, the idea began to germinate in the Enlightenment heritage of Cartesianism.

In Tischner’s opinion, the Enlightenment terra-ised, that is ‘earthed’ evil: “Evil became transparent and measurable, accessible to rational analysis. It lost its metaphysical power.”²³⁷ Therefore, man does not have to be only a perpetrator of evil; he can also be its master and in his good will he can control it. However, the thought of the inheritors of the Enlightenment has shown—Schopenhauer being an example—that will does not have to be implicitly good; quite the opposite, it can be dark, chaotic, but above all it can take a liking to evil. Besides, in dispute with Christianity and by way of uncritical trust in scientific achievements, the Enlightenment undertook to free man from deserved misfortunes—miseries caused by the human reason enslaved by lies and superstitions.²³⁸ However, it soon turned out, notes Tischner, that freeing man was in fact a utopian endeavor: “The Enlightenment did not overcome ‘the evil of history’, but the place of the crime of ‘the superstitious’ was taken by the crime of ‘the enlightened.’”²³⁹ The crime of ‘the enlightened’ meant participation in evil which man actually did not want. This crime above all meant participation in the structure whose mode of being was defined by Kant himself. Let us take note of Tischner’s remark: “The man of the Enlightenment turned out to be a dancer who could dance well but to the wrong music. Kant said: ‘do your duty.’ Those who were convinced that they were doing their duties later on ended up in the dock at the Nuremberg trials.”²⁴⁰ This wrong kind of music is structural evil—it bears hallmarks of demonic evil. A man participates, lives in a structure of evil, and even though himself is not a demon, in his action, through his deeds he shows the phenomenon of fiendishness: in him not only is the awareness of good destroyed, but above all the awareness of evil is dying out—evil which man does not want, but participates in, fanatically and mindlessly carrying out his duties. It is precisely this space of participation that is connected with the idea of the death of man. Tischner writes:

As we participate in evil—something that we do not want—are we really that which we know we are? If our participation goes beyond the limits of our awareness, this means that truly anything can be different. And thus we die before we could even be born. And in a case like this “the death of man” means a death of someone who never existed.²⁴¹ 

Before we return to this conception of death, as viewed by Tischner, let us draw attention to one more thing.

Demonic evil is a kind of evil that in this world is an out-of-this-world phenomenon, which is metaphysical and which is—to use Jean Nabert’s phrase as quoted by Tischner –“unjustifiability”²⁴² itself, i.e. that which is “impossible to be justified,”²⁴³ as the reason for its action is “retaliation against good for its daring to be good.”²⁴⁴ According to Tischner, examples of such evil are furnished by the two totalitarianisms of the 20th century: Nazism and communism. The German Auschwitz and the Soviet Kolyma may serve here as their particular symbols. As he thoroughly describes these two symbols of boundless evil, Tischner first evaluates them in a twofold manner: on the one hand, he adopts as the point of reference the lives of innocent victims of evil, while on the other hand—the behavior of the perpetrators of evil. In the context of Auschwitz and German fascism, Tischner pays attention to the experience of “the mother of all suffering.” Firstly, it was connected with the fear of death that was effected like “animal-like dying.” Secondly, it was connected with inconceivable humiliation of man, taking away his sense of dignity and identity.²⁴⁵ With regard to the tragic event of Kolyma, Tischner writes about the contemporary horizon of Manichean metaphysics. Its frightful effect is exploitation of one man by another, extreme indoctrination provoking a curse of existence,²⁴⁶ as a result of which man sacrifices his most cherished values for the sake of the highest, most important “values” of the murderous ideology.²⁴⁷ It is noteworthy that it is precisely in the context of these two contemporary embodiments of demonic evil that Tischner takes a close look at the idea of the death of man. The authors of Auschwitz and Kolyma would like to justify themselves, since they only fulfilled their duties; they would like to shake off the responsibility on the grounds that they were following the principle of the enlightened whereby—let us restate that—everyone should perform their duties. As a result, Tischner notes that the architect of Auschwitz and Kolyma

… would like to prove that he partook in none of that, that all happened without his involvement and behind his back. For acquittal to become clear, a prospect of man’s annihilation appears. That which hell failed to accomplish, man himself undertakes: he wants to prove that that which he did was not done by him, because he never existed. Thus arises the idea of “the death of man.”²⁴⁸ 

From this perspective, the idea of the death of man is very convenient for the perpetrator of evil that cries to Heaven for vengeance. Obviously, this idea is certainly an expression of an accusation of man and an instrument for depicting his fall of a profoundly ethical significance, which is tantamount to self-destruction of humanity in man.²⁴⁹ In Tischner’s opinion, self-annihilation begins when man discovers that because of weakness or ignorance “he is not capable of being good” and that is why “he will always be a carrier of some evil.”²⁵⁰ And so in order to justify himself and disburden himself of the responsibility for evil, man uses as an excuse the necessity to fulfil some duty dictated by the realities of life, holding the view that if so, then he was never there.

Twice in his description Tischner feels the need to explain the statement “he was never there,” which is so characteristic of the idea of the death of man. The leitmotif of the idea of the death of man is death of humanity in man. As he describes humanity, Tischner explains that its meaning is above all agathological. Humanity is expressed in the internal space of awareness, which is sensitive to the possibility of evil and the possibility of good. This dual sensitivity and the attendant tension between the awareness of the possibility of evil and the awareness of the possibility of good are, according to Tischner, a basic condition for the possibility of the humanity of man.²⁵¹ He who does not develop such an awareness in himself, does not grow up enough to understand himself and does not accept the responsibility for the possibility of good and evil in himself and around, dies before he is born, that is before he becomes manifest in his humanity.

In the first take on these issues, Tischner paints a picture of man who annihilates his humanity, disburdening himself of responsibility for participation in evil. This state of affairs emerges when man eliminates from his life the absolute point of reference in the development of his awareness of good and evil.²⁵² As he describes the death of man, Tischner exposes him as a “player,” who subjects his life to an external rule, entwining it in the world based on convention. In such a life, in the internal space of man’s consciousness there is no more room for hard and fast moral or legal principles. Life itself is but a reflection of a contract, which has been consciously drawn up and signed by the player, and which today has one form, but tomorrow may be different, depending on the projected profit which more often than not turns out to be both economic and moral exploitation of one man by another.²⁵³ In this fluidity there is nothing permanent any more, which might stand in the way of man “killing a human inside him.”²⁵⁴

In the second take, Tischner starts off with recognizing the “death of man” as being-against-oneself. In this case, the death of man is a consequence of the Manichean triumph of the awareness of the possibility of evil over the awareness of the possibility of good, man’s embroilment in the situation where evil begins to feed on good.²⁵⁵ In this context, the death of man is above all a man’s lapse into the state of hopelessness: “I am not worthy of existence, because I am evil. My evil can be seen in others: I am their misery …. Hopelessness is something more than just a mood. It is a way of summoning values. “I am not worthy of life, I am not worthy of others.”²⁵⁶ The death of man, and of his humanity, viewed as a denial of the right to existence is again connected with the fact that in the internal space of his consciousness man has caused a paralysis of his sensitivity to good—he did not want to be born: “as regards being yourself and humanity,” you cannot be born, or be yourself, if you don’t want to. The paradox of man lies in that on the one hand he “has already been born” (was born), but on the other hand—he “gives birth to himself.”²⁵⁷ As we know, in Tischner’s view, this is possible only within the agathological space of consciousness, in the awareness of the tension between good and evil, and in the awareness of the responsibility for the choice of good or evil. Seen from this perspective, the way Tischner diagnoses the problematic issues concerned with the death of man in the sphere of the so-called postmodernism is remarkable: “‘The death of man’ is a death of the one who has never existed—the one who has not been born yet,”²⁵⁸ because he did not want to give birth to himself in the agathological space; he did not want to use it for his life. Hence, it should be concluded that the proclamation of the death of man in postmodernism was possible only because postmodernism did not discover the relevance of the agathological space of consciousness for the formation of humanity in man.

In these two takes on the issues concerned with the death of man, Tischner once again, in The Controversy over the Existence of Man, raises the issue of despair. It is a radical negation of the possibility of justification of a being in existence; it is a manifestation of the questioning of all reason for its existence, because it is first and foremost a negation of good in man. In Tischner’s language this means that “despair … reaches down to the ‘very bottom’ of a person. What does it tell the person? What does it want to convince the person of? It convinces him of his ‘being evil’ …. Despair is a reflection of evil which manifests itself and which seizes a person for itself.²⁵⁹ This act of being seized by evil is exactly tantamount to radical being against oneself, to the death of humanity, out of which man cannot get without help from someone else. In this context, the themes of the Other and hope—which already feature in The Philosophy of Drama—appear once again. It is only with “mutual entrustment of hope that the ‘death of man’ can be overcome.”²⁶⁰ This mutuality constitutes a horizon within which emerges human longing “for that which is really good, and through freedom the longing is searching for space.”²⁶¹ This finding by Tischner has fundamental relevance for his project of the philosophy of man as a philosophy of human drama. After all, it is a kind of philosophy in which Tischner points to essential conditions for being human, as well as to necessary criteria for overcoming the idea of the death of man. These are, Tischner notes, two conditions: opening up to good, and as a consequence of this opening—man’s discovery of the relevance of freedom for understanding of his humanity. And because—as we already know—the Other as another man does not always want to participate in mutual entrustment of hope, facing up to the idea of the death of man in Tischner’s opinion takes place above all in a relationship with God, that is in the most important drama of human life. In this context, Józef Tischner’s philosophy of man becomes intertwined with his philosophy of God, the two forming one whole. It is exactly in this whole that special significance is given to the exposition of good and freedom as the most important dimensions of the paths leading to rebirth, which are in fact paths leading to man’s liberation from the snares of the idea of his death. Tischner describes a strong connection between good and freedom in the context of his fascination for the issue of grace.

Rebirth

The question of grace is of such great significance for Tischner’s philosophy of man, because without it there is no answer to the question of “however in the world of evil … can good appear?”²⁶² However possible is that which “inside the logic of reciprocity construed as retaliation”²⁶³ at first sight appears to be impossible, which is to ask however possible is “going from despair to hope”²⁶⁴—and by extension however possible is the overcoming of the idea of the death of man in favor of his rebirth, his life lived with hope, joy and a sense of his own dignity?²⁶⁵

The question of “grace”

It is common knowledge that grace is first and foremost a theological concept. However, Tischner stresses the legitimacy of using the concept of grace in the philosophy of man. As we read:

… theology touches only upon one aspect of this concept—the “supernatural” aspect; it is, however, incontrovertible that “grace” has an experiential aspect to it as well. We experience every kind of good that we can partake of undeservedly to be “grace.” And since essential good is always undeserved good, we experience grace in every instance of an encounter with such good. The experience of grace can and even must become a philosophical subject.²⁶⁶

Tischner once again expresses this intuition when he stresses that “the concept of grace is not only a religious concept. It also appears in a non-religious field where it is used to describe events taking place between one man and another.”²⁶⁷

Tischner devotes much of his last philosophical treatise²⁶⁸ to issues concerned with the history of the reflection on the concept of grace, claiming in the conclusions of his analyses of this issue that any attempt at a fatalist-causal approach to the issue of grace plunges man into a vicious circle, that is into a never-ending dispute over how to bring together grace and freedom, or man’s freedom and God’s omnipotence: “If man is free, then God is no longer omnipotent. If God is omnipotent, then man is not free. … If grace acts, then man does not act, and if man acts, then grace does not act.”²⁶⁹

Undoubtedly, Tischner views grace as the opposite of fate, but above all as a selfless and generous gift resulting from free and unconstrained will.²⁷⁰ And that is why as he illuminates the phenomenological foundations of this concept, Tischner pays most attention to the link connecting grace, good and freedom. Good and freedom are gifts of grace in some directly proportionate order. Firstly, from the Christian perspective, “grace is not the opposite of freedom, but its condition,” … it is “a grace of liberation.”²⁷¹ Secondly, the greater grace is, the greater good is, and when good is at its height, so is freedom.²⁷² It is exactly the link between grace, good and freedom that determines the space of man’s liberation from the bonds of the idea of death and the bonds of evil. Let us restate that the liberation resp. salvation of man is beyond man’s power. That is why he needs grace coming from the Other, the entrustee of hope. Let us once again take note of Tischner’s finding: The idea of grace serves to explicate the possibility of “overcoming ‘the death of man’ … the possibility of a leap from despair to hope.”²⁷³ According to Tischner this idea is not to be omitted in the understanding of the human drama of life. “If we omit it, we will be left with the notion of fate only.”²⁷⁴ Accepting grace in fact means accepting some good which rescues man. It is only good that rescues man from despair, and that can help him understand the true meaning of hope. That is why Tischner writes: “To read hope is to read good which is coming. Hope is only possible in a finite being touched by Infinite Good.”²⁷⁵ By using capital letters in this sentence, Tischner unambiguously claims that in his opinion the ultimate, definitive and fully effective rescue of man who has found himself in a state of despair, and who is undergoing a death of his humanity, can only come from God. That is why Tischner stresses that the dialogic structure of human drama is most profoundly expressed exactly in man’s relationship with God. Entrusting oneself to Good, while accepting the self-entrusting Good, that is God, is—as we already know—intrinsic to the “reading” of hope, which is the space of man’s rebirth—the space of becoming a new man. Tischner provides an illustration of this path in the depiction of Saint Paul’s conversion.²⁷⁶ The prototype of the interpersonal relationship, and in particular the divine-human one can be found in the Tischnerian description of the dynamic life of the Holy Trinity. Looking for traces of trinitarian theology, in particular the one pursued by Hans Urs von Balthasar and Gisbert Greshake, Tischner characterizes this life as the internal life of Good. It is manifested by three free Persons who are gifts to one another.²⁷⁷

The metaphysics of good and freedom

As Józef Tischner illuminates, against the backdrop of the issues concerned with grace, the path taken by man from the death of his humanity to his rebirth, he primarily focuses on the metaphysics of good and freedom. We already know that it is in this metaphysics that he discerns life-giving soil in which the most profound human experience of life sprouts up. With reference to Scheler, Tischner reveals one of the first findings of this metaphysics in a distinction so crucial for proper understanding of man: good cannot be identified with values. While values in the world have an objective character, good is characterized by its subjective dimension and conditions appearance of values. This is because it appears as light²⁷⁸ thanks to which we can think and act in values in the first place. With this in mind, Tischner notes:

“Values” are that which appears “in the light”: they are “objective,” rooted in a situation, offered to us to be admired (beauty), to be realized (morality). “Good” is that which remains in the background, is “out of this world,” and yet … “shines for me”—shines for “my good.” Good “engenders” good. … In the world good has its given name, and not a name. For it is not an object, a thing, or a system of structures. It is: Adam, Eve, Abraham. A given name is “different”—different than the earth it walks.²⁷⁹

It is noteworthy that in his description of good/Good, spelt with both a small and a capital letter, Tischner—a spiritual heir to Meister Eckhart—uses a special language: he speaks about light, being born. It is a language of metaphor, of dramatic coming of good out of the background, of good being dramatically born in man. It is a language expressing the paradox of human life. On the one hand, man is already born, was born, but on the other hand, he is giving birth to himself in no other manner than in the space of good, in the agathological space and thanks to it—it is the true matrix for his rebirth.²⁸⁰

Hence, it is worth stressing that the language of metaphor—the language of Tischnerian agathology is not a language of philosophy of being. This is because in Tischner’s opinion this philosophy is not capable of capturing the essence of good, or of describing the emergence of good. As an event in man and for man, good “occurs ‘beyond being and non-being’ in the space where such ‘transcendentals’ as beauty, truth and good live.”²⁸¹ In other words, the logic of good is not a logic of being, the agathological order is not an order of ontology.²⁸² Good exists outside being and non-being, and so breaks free from the control exercised by the principles of the philosophy of being.²⁸³ This can particularly be seen in the instance of the application of the principles of causality and sufficient reason. In this context, Tischner notes that:

… the causality of good does not identify with the causality of being: it does not care about proportions, it does not reckon with the sufficient condition, it does not exhaust its strengths in action. When being acts, its effect must be proportionate to the cause. When good acts, let no one try to measure proportions. When being acts, it acts according to the sufficient reason. When good acts, the very possibility of acting is a sufficient reason. When being acts, after some time it feels “tired” and “exhausted” by acting. When good acts, no “good deed” of it exhausts it, but it deepens it and “imparts strength.”²⁸⁴

Inspired by Lévinas and the philosophy of freedom pursued by both Plato, Saint Augustine, Hegel and Bergson, Tischner—on the basis of the plexus of metaphysics of good and metaphysics of freedom—creates agathology as the metaphysics of man. In his description of the plexus, Tischner pays attention to its manifold aspects. Above all, good does not manifest itself otherwise than through freedom; it cannot exist otherwise than in freedom.²⁸⁵ Since good does not manifest itself otherwise than through offering itself as a gift, then speaking about a gift in the context of not freedom, but compulsion would be absurd. Besides, it should be noted that the bond between a gift and freedom proves that freedom can never be evil, but is always essentially good. Good is the principle of freedom, and freedom presupposes the existence of good. What is more, both good and freedom break free from the principles governing the philosophy of being. Tischner presents this relation between good and freedom concisely thus: “Freedom is a mode of existence of good. Good in itself is free. It is absolutely free. It is outside the structures of being. Being free in itself, it frees everyone who wants to share in it.”²⁸⁶ In another place, the author emphasizes the sovereignty of freedom in relation to the operation of the laws of ontology.

To understand the nature of freedom one needs to rise to the agathological level. Freedom is “outside being and non-being.” … The proper field within which freedom has an effect is a person. The effect freedom has on a person is such that a person chooses his freedom. But the choice of one’s own freedom contains the paradox of freedom: to choose freedom one already needs to be free, but one is not free if one has not chosen freedom. The paradox proves that we have left the sphere of being and are now “outside being and non-being.”²⁸⁷

The Tischnerian presentation of the agathological meaning of freedom resembles, on the one hand, Ferdinand Ebner’s philosophy of word, and on the other hand, Buber’s descriptions of the phenomenon of “between” (zwischen). The awakening of freedom first occurs between persons and not in themselves. That is why it is legitimate to speak about the Tischnerian exposition of the dialogic space of human freedom. Since it is embedded in the human drama, first and foremost it is not some abstract freedom; the first point of reference in an intelligent approach to freedom is not myself, but exactly the Other: “Freedom is first and foremost freedom of the Other.”²⁸⁸ Tischner defines the freedom of the Other as a gift of grace offered to a man: “No one can have freedom ‘forced on’ them, but freedom can be offered as a gift of grace. … By becoming ‘gracious’, man not only expresses who he is, but also ‘awakens’ freedom in the enslaved.”²⁸⁹

The passages from Tischner’s works that have been cited above treat of the bond between good and freedom chiefly on the plane of interhuman drama. Good, which is about “awakening” the freedom of the enslaved, opens man up to the already familiar world of hope, the dialogue of graces which resounds with the voice saying that there is always a chance to shake off despair, that the death of humanity does not have to be the last “word” in human existence, that in a dialogue between two human freedoms, each subject experiences his own freedom as good thanks to which he can take possession of himself, and thanks to which he controls himself.²⁹⁰

From Tischner’s metaphysical viewpoint, we can discern the plexus of good and freedom on yet another plane of human drama, where one of its subjects is personal God. The question of God in Tischner’s philosophical work appears primarily in two contexts which invariably overlap and intertwine. The first context is constituted by man’s most dramatic question—the question about God: Is there a God? Where is God? Where does God come to meet man from? How can man find his God? … in fact there is only one drama for a person—the drama involving God. Any other drama or a dramatic thread is but a fragment of this drama.”²⁹¹ It is only in The Controversy over the Existence of Man that Tischner most fully exposes this context. He does that in his reinterpretation of the ontological proof of the existence of God, in which he shows the possibility of moving from the level of the logic of being to the level of the dramatic aspect of good, the logic of drama. He writes:

… Absolute Good is that beyond which nothing greater can be conceived of …. Absolute Good demands to come into existence in an absolute manner; it cannot not exist. God—as absolute Good—exists. How do we know that Good demands to exist? We know it from our own internal experience. I want good, not evil. … God is absolute Good, absolute freedom and consciousness not because it exists absolutely, but He exists absolutely, because He is absolute Good, absolute consciousness and freedom.²⁹²

One can easily notice that the questions that open the first context of thinking about God immediately create the second context of discovering God. This creation takes place on the foundation of the plexus of good and freedom. God is absolute Good independent of the goodness of any other goods, which are relative in relation to the Absolute Good. God is the Supreme Good, and wherever such Good is, there is also the greatest freedom and the most profound graciousness. That is why, according to Tischner, only in the face of God can man stand in complete freedom, that is in his independence.²⁹³ In a description of an encounter between man’s finite freedom, as an accidental being, and absolute freedom—God’s infinite freedom—Tischner uses an image of a dialogue between two goods, two graces. In this way he explains how possible, in the first place, the relationship between man, who is sovereign in relation to God, and God, who is sovereign in relation to man is. The dialogue between graces is in fact a dynamic promotion of man in the face of God, which has its origins in God. Awakening good in man makes him God’s friend. Friendship excludes violence; friendship is an experience of freedom: “The most profound graciousness awakens readiness for similar graciousness in man. That is where the religious bond between God and man comes from—the bond free of violence, because grace has consumed violence. Or better yet: violence has become absurd.”²⁹⁴

Tischner finds the prototype of this bond in the internal life of the Holy Trinity. In a description of the relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, he pays particular attention exactly to the freedom of the three divine Persons. They are free—they possess one another when they share themselves and their goodness—they are gifts to one another.²⁹⁵ “Good is tri-Personal, filled with love, knowledge and self-knowledge, and internally free.”²⁹⁶ Tischner finds the theme of love in the life of the Holy Trinity to be particularly important. This is because the discovery that God is internally free is in his opinion of great significance for the understanding of the origins of human freedom, and by extension for the creation of a human life project in which the idea of the death of man fades away:

This discovery [about God being internally free—J.J.] projects a new image of our earthly business. Have we ever wondered how freedom appeared on earth? Actually, the earth could do without it. There is no freedom among stones, waters, rains and hailstorms, earthquakes and gales. There is no freedom in the beautiful world of butterflies or dangerous snake nests. And what about man? Is it not a paradox that the idea of freedom comes to man? Where does it come from? Some fight for freedom, others run away from it, but freedom continues to be a problem. Can freedom in this world be from this world? It goes against nature. If God is internally free, then everything changes. Created in the image and likeness of God, man needs to carry in him this wind that is blowing inside the Holy Trinity.²⁹⁷

Given the above, it should be noted that Tischner does not turn his anthropology into a theology. As he concludes The Controversy over the Existence of Man, he makes an important comment: “It was not my intention to present here the trinitarian theology in its full extent. Essentially, we are still interested more in man than God.”²⁹⁸

Seen from this perspective and following Tischner, we once again pose a question that is crucial to the dialectic of man’s death and birth. “on what conditions can ‘a human be born’ in man?”²⁹⁹ Let us remember that the true space of man’s rebirth, the matrix, that is the soil breeding humanity is the internal space of consciousness in its agathological sense. It is in this space that human sensitivity to evil and good grows; in it he discovers that he is not entirely evil, because he can experience in himself good as freedom and freedom as good. Is conversion to God the only necessary condition for rebirth? Tischner does not say that. However, as we already know, he writes that man needs to carry inside him the breath of good, this wind of freedom which blows inside the Persons of the Holy Trinity. From Tischner’s viewpoint, this breath of good, this wind of freedom reveals itself most fully exactly in the internal life of the Holy Trinity. And that is the wind that fills the agathological space of consciousness—the condition for the possibility of humanity in man, his being himself, his taking possession of himself, his life in freedom, which is the true good of man.

Let us remember Tischner’s thought whereby a question arises at the beginning of the drama: “who are you?” The end of the drama features two mutually exclusive possibilities: you are cursed or blessed.³⁰⁰ Tischner places his philosophical findings about man exactly in the tension between the curse and the blessing, that is the state of man’s happiness. Such a placement shows that not only is man intensely affected by his drama, but the philosophy of man itself is dramatic: for how can you demonstrate to man what his true salvation is about? One thing is certain about Tischner’s philosophy: the higher good man chooses, the happier he is, and the stronger the foundations of his life are. As he platonically soars higher and higher—attracted by the gracious good—man comes into contact with the supreme Good.³⁰¹ That is the first and foremost reason why Tischner explored God’s internal life, because he wanted to show to man how absolute Good—the supreme freedom—occurs and what its style of existence is. To instil in one’s own life the mode of life of absolute Good: that is a very meaningful proposal that Tischner makes to man looking for happiness. That is a proposal that determines the minimum and necessary conditions for the rebirth of man threatened with the idea of the death of his own humanity. The conclusion of The Controversy over the Existence of Man is unambiguous: only God can shine the brightest light in the darkness of the human drama.³⁰²

4.5. The ending, that is the last word in the drama of deliverance

By following the main threads in Józef Tischner’s philosophy of man—the axiological and agathological threads—we have obtained a metaphysical image of man—a dramatic being affected by the existential tension between the possibility of choosing evil and the possibility of choosing good, between the possibility of enslavement and the possibility of deliverance, between the possibility of death and the possibility of life, between the possibility of damnation and the possibility of salvation. In the last phase of the Tischnerian exposition of this tension, a significant role was played by the trinitarian context of the discovery of the absolute Good as the greatest freedom. We already know that the trinitarian context was chiefly used by Tischner to gain a thorough insight into the history of man’s deliverance from the shackles of the idea of his death. It transpires that this insight is at the same time an insight into the very core of man, without which man just does not exist.

If we want to understand Tischner’s concluding thought about the dramatic man, let us once again focus our attention on the bond between freedom and good in the internal life of the Triune God. Tischner writes:

Freedom is above all about “having possession of oneself.” The Persons in the Holy Trinity possess one another. That is what their freedom is founded on. The fact that they are “gifts to one another” is a perfect manifestation of freedom. And if one wants to be a gift, freedom alone is not enough; love is also necessary. The internal life of the Persons of the Holy Trinity is an act of love. There would be no act like this, if God was not absolute Good.³⁰³

And so an unusually important theme appears in Tischner’s description of Divine life—the theme of love. With regard to the internal life of the Holy Trinity, it was finely elucidated almost at the end of the philosopher’s life, when in his book entitled A Priest Astray he explained that “awareness of goodness directed at the other is love.”³⁰⁴ Therefore, absolute Good wants to be conscious, self-conscious, and therefore personal. It is no accident that it shares itself with the Other—it wants to share and wants to do it with a very specific Other. In the context of the metaphorical description of the human movement up towards absolute Good, towards heaven, and so in the context of the description of man getting out of the state of the death of his humanity and to the state of life, Tischner uses this conception of love in his presentation of the nucleus of man, his core, his fullness without which it is difficult for him to live.

The other aspect of man’s upward movement towards heaven is motion inside. The higher we are in heaven, the deeper we go inside ourselves. To become an inhabitant of heaven also means: to become oneself for oneself, to reach “the core of oneself.” Love is the “core” of man. All the rest revolves around love. Love is the basic manner of participation in good.³⁰⁵ 

If it is only good that saves man from the death of his own humanity, then it means that the last word and act in the drama of salvation is love.

Józef Tischner did not have enough time to develop the theme of love in his philosophy of man. Possibly, that was the theme he had in mind when, writing about the death of humanity and the paths leading to its revival, he stated: “We are still moving in the field of huge possibilities.”³⁰⁶

Miłosz Hołda

The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow

5. DISCUSSION AND POLEMICS

Tischner’s intellectual position matured via a series of “heated disputes”¹ and it was in these disputes that his thought and attitude were molded. However, the most important thing was not that he was able to courageously and brilliantly defend his arguments but rather what he fought for and on whose behalf. Tischner would engage in disputes over essential issues, which at times were even of fundamental significance. He fought for man and God. His point in these disputes was not to demonstrate to the opponent that he was right. The essential thing was to adequately understand who man is, and who God is, as well as showing the possibility of establishing a relationship between man and God. He listened out very carefully for man, as well as he did for God, looking for His traces.² He tried to show that “one cannot think about God without thinking about man, at whom He directs His message. And conversely: you cannot sensibly think about man, while disregarding the absolute perspective.”³ The act of listening out directed at man and God led Tischner to engage in dialogue with representatives of various thought movements. Sometimes the dialogue took the form of dispute.

Thanks to his philosophy studies and meetings with ordinary people, Tischner realized that errors plaguing the perception of man not only make life difficult, but may also be highly significant for the kind of decisions that are made, the kind of interhuman relationships that are built, and the way religious faith is lived. He had a good grasp of how dangerous delusions can be, but at the same time kept his faith in man’s ability to break their influence and venture a relationship with God. He was aware that in our times man’s search for himself and for God takes on a special dimension which needs to be taken into account. Tischner knew that, when thinking about God and man, one cannot pretend that nothing wrong ever happened in the 20th century, or turn a blind eye to the tragedy of Auschwitz and Kolyma.⁴ He believed that “the courage of thinking comes from the courage of looking.”⁵ His thinking and disputes were characterized by courage, because he was not afraid to look in the eye of the reality he was living in. In such a reality he was looking for “God after Auschwitz” and “man after Kolyma.”

He did not want to be a thinker who would run and hide in the abstract, but consciously chose to be firmly rooted in the situation he and his contemporaries were faced with. Through the disputes he was engaged in he wanted to help people get back on an even keel after tragic experiences and build a life in such a challenging reality. He considered it to be certain that philosophy should be pursued with regard to the place one finds himself in, and that philosophizing must be related to adoption of a clear-cut stance.⁶ But above all he was convinced that the philosopher must guard values, the realization of which can provide man with a chance to build his life and relationship with God in the proper manner.

Tischner engaged in all these disputes as a believer. He found Christianity to be the hermeneutic key that opened the door to understanding of man and his relationship with God.⁷ Even though he realized that Christian thought was crisis-ridden, he wanted to reveal its “freshness” and potential anew. The problem of man seemed to him to be resolvable only when combined with the problem of God. Such a combination furnished not only a justification of the right to faith, but also afforded a chance to protect thinking about man from reductive interpretations.⁸ It was precisely thanks to the fact that he was operating on the foundation of Christianity that in the disputes he engaged in first and foremost he defended the three values that are so firmly rooted in Christianity, and which find their best substantiation in it. The three values were: hope, individuality and responsibility.⁹

He was involved in a dispute over hope with Marxism.¹⁰ He knew that Marxism was not just a highly elaborate philosophy of society and politics, but above all an anthropology. “Marxism is first and foremost a philosophy of the human soul,”¹¹ he wrote. In Tischner’s opinion, the reason why the Marxist thought was so attractive was because it proposed an ethos that was an imperative to fight to liberate work from the yoke of exploitation.¹² Tischner accurately recognized the origins of the success of Marxist ideas, and with this recognition as the basis he wanted to build a possibility of dialogue with the Marxist thought.¹³ He realized that Marxism and Christianity wanted to be philosophies of human hope, but he was also aware of the fact that the images of human hope in the two philosophies differed considerably.¹⁴

The most important reason why Tischner engaged in debate with the Marxist thought was his conviction that Marxism radically negated supernatural hope. Tischner claimed that such a kind of hope in Marxism was viewed to be a utopia, a manifestation of thinking out of touch with concrete life, unwillingness to fight for better tomorrow and, last but not least, consent to exploitation. From the Marxist viewpoint, invoking supernatural hopes stands in the way of appropriate, scientific cognition of the world and gaining total control of it. The horizon of hope revealed by Marxism is earth—terra. For Marxists, man is a “terra-ised” creature capable only of using reasonable power, that is work, and of settling on earth deeper and deeper. Every form of hope that reaches further than the earth and its affairs must be in the light of the above regarded as an unnecessary addition that pushes man out of touch with life.

Tischner would not agree to this limitation. He wanted to stand up for the order of hope, but above all he fought against hope being taken away from people—not only the natural hope, but also the one that goes beyond the earthly horizon.¹⁵ Also, he did not agree to viewing hope concerned with the control of natural forces and the earth as man’s basic hope. He defended the primacy of interhuman hope, claiming that a proper attitude to nature is a consequence of proper relations with people, not vice versa.¹⁶ He also emphasized that although Marxists regard man as the supreme value, they place him only within the horizon of work for the benefit of society. Tischner stressed that Christianity opens up a different ethical horizon. Within this horizon, the relationships between man and man, and between man and God are more important than the relationship between man and the world. Furthermore, the individual existence of man alone, and not work, is the greatest sanctity.¹⁷ In Tischner’s opinion, thanks to such a conception of man, Christianity can liberate him from being shut away in hideouts and teach him to build relationships based on love, and not on mutual control.¹⁸ Tischner suggests that it is only when the dimension of supernatural hope has been taken into account that man can become fully involved in the realization of earthly hopes. He can accept responsibility for all the values in the world and become involved with the world as its rightful owner.¹⁹ Tischner managed to pinpoint the spiritual significance of Marxism and put forward an appropriate response on the same plane—the spiritual plane.²⁰ The response comes down to pointing to the sphere of supernatural hope and man’s ability to build a relationship with God.

Tischner’s dispute with Thomism, which was originated with the famous essay entitled The Decline of Thomist Christianity,²¹ published 1970, may be viewed as a “domestic fight” at the very heart of Christian thought.²² Such disputes are most difficult though. This is because they are viewed as “sawing off the branch you’re sitting on.” However, Tischner believed that the dispute was worth having to take out of the Thomist costume that Christianity was draped in the everlasting values that were concealed beneath. He mentioned: “Thomism began leaking out of me, because it did not provide tools to figure out this world. I consigned it to a museum, because it was like a spinning wheel, and a spinning machine had been invented.”²³ Tischner saw it as only natural that every interpretation of Christianity had its time and was only finitely valid and useful. He considered that if some philosophy could not offer man what he needed, then apparently its possibilities had been exhausted.²⁴ He claimed that overstressing the importance of one thought system made it impossible to discover the Christian ethos of thinking present in contemporary philosophy, and which—in his opinion—needed to be brought out to light.

However, what Tischner found to be the main problem of the Thomist thought was that originally it was supposed to constitute a coherent system of elements of the Revelation, and a very specific kind of philosophy. In Tischner’s opinion, in this system, the order of values had been replaced with an ontological pattern. Hence, in his opinion, Thomism “is blind to all that will not lend itself to being ontologized, that is to all the dramatic dimension of human life. It really does not know what despair, doubt, betrayal, hope, damnation or deliverance are. Thomism lets all the subjectivity and intimacy of a human person slip away,”²⁵ he wrote. That is, in Tischner’s opinion, the reason why Thomists cannot properly grasp interhuman relationships, or relationships between man and God. Tischner believes that they should be interpreted by using dramatic, and not causal categories.²⁶ Tischner implies that Thomism appears to become cognizant of that which is unique in an individual, but it does not offer tools to understand the singularity of his drama involving another man and God. Even though critics of Tischner emphasized that the reason for the differences may be the discrepancy between the research approaches, Tischner insisted that appropriate understanding of man and his affairs was not possible from the perspective that Thomism offered.

Tischner tried to demonstrate that an inadequate approach to interhuman relationships also translates into an inadequate approach to the relationship between man and God, as well as into the conception of who God is. He claimed that in Thomism God is above a being per se. God’s immutability and infinite perfection are said to be the most significant of His attributes. In the Thomist system, God is construed to be the ultimate reason to elucidate the world. Even though all these propositions came to be disputed by modern thought, as Tischner observed, the very problem of God had not been removed from philosophy, and his existence had not been denied. Tischner wishes to stress that the relationship between God and man is to be found not in the mechanics that govern the creation, but in the sphere of an interpersonal bond. God should be viewed as unlimited freedom, as a Person subject to the law of love. The discovery of God and the discovery of a person go hand in hand. Against this backdrop, one can clearly see the mutual relation between theology and anthropology. Against this backdrop, one can also clearly see the danger of systemic thinking. The controversy over individuality is therefore not only concerned with the way man is construed, but also the way God is construed, as well as the manner in which the divine-human relation is interpreted.

The third dispute engaged in by Tischner was the dispute over responsibility. Even though, as regards its scope, this dispute was the slightest of those that Tischner pursued, its import was no less than the import of the above-discussed disputes. It is given the most prominence in The Controversy over the Existence of Man. In it, Tischner discusses the idea of “the death of man” advocated by postmodernists. Tischner’s foremost intention was not to enter into a polemic with the conviction whereby man is dead, but rather to find the answer to the question whether man can be reborn. Instead of tackling postmodernism head-on, Tischner introduces his readers into the sphere of religious thinking, which he believes to be the answer to the problem caused by the thought about the death of man.²⁷

Tischner wants to point out that if man wants to establish a religious relation, he first has to leave the world of play. By referring to Kierkegaard’s division of life into the aesthetic, ethical and religious stages, Tischner claims that great danger lies in turning man’s life into play. At first glance, it might seem that viewing everything as play might have a therapeutic and liberating effect. However, wherever there is play, there is no more room for truth—it is all about seduction. Those who live by playing do not shoulder responsibility. That is precisely the cause of a calamity that can affect man and reduce him to living a life of melancholy only. He who treats life like play contributes to building an increasingly trivial and exotic culture and a community of immature and irresponsible individuals. Even if man ultimately realizes the limits of play, this may happen in a manner very unfavorable to him—a clash with evil. This may in turn lead to relativism or fundamentalism. Both the attitudes are inappropriate ways of dealing with the drama of human life. Assuming responsibility is the appropriate way. Tischner stresses that responsibility awareness arises out of the deep within the person, engulfs him entirely, allows man to mature. Responsibility is a difficult challenge, because it calls for sacrifice. It is easier to rebel against it, run away, do whatever is possible to keep life on the level of play. However, without making choices concerning life as a whole, the choices that are about witnessing the truth and freedom, without accepting responsibility for one’s own life, man will not be able to share in that which can lend meaning to his life—good. The drama of good takes place in the sphere of love; it is a chance whereby man can be re-born. This drama also offers a chance to discover that man is the truth you can rely on. This discovery is made by placing trust in God-Man, who says He is the truth.²⁸ An encounter with Him makes it possible to settle this difficult and dramatic controversy over the existence of man in favor of mankind.

Tischner was convinced that disputes are very useful, because they enable one to find a plane on which to build something together. If you manage to discover the proper foundation of your opponent’s views, then you stand a chance of mapping out the road to be travelled together, but above all of reviewing your own sources. That was the case of Marxism. Tischner writes that Christians exposed the hope that Marxism was built on, and that is why they could construct their own beliefs on soil that was “fertilized better,” or “fertilized differently.”²⁹

As he entered into disputes, Tischner was thinking about man, not about the idea of man. He was looking at specific people and specific faces of those he was meeting. That is why he demanded that Thomism should take into account man the way he is. He argued that even if Christianity invoked lofty ideals, it did not do that to invalidate the humanity of a specific individual, but to point to a possible way to fulfil this humanity.³⁰

As he entered into disputes, Tischner wanted to draw on those philosophical standpoints whereby man is accurately interpreted. That is why he rejected postmodernist relativism, as well as its counterbalance in the form of fundamentalism. In Tischner’s opinion, neither relativists nor fundamentalists “know what is in man.” Only he who can see man in the entirety of his truth can help engage in the fight for human rebirth. That is why Tischner would delve into the Gospel, where he could read that Jesus “knows what is in man.”³¹

All of Tischner’s disputes had not only a theoretical, but also a practical dimension to them. Tischner’s point was to use the accurate recognition of who man is as the foundation on which to build a community of people willing to engage in dialogue. He wanted to help his fellow countrymen rise above the level of monologic society in which cognition of the truth was conditioned upon the achievement of the level of seeing power, because the individual is seen as a carrier of delusions. In a society like this, dialogue is impossible, hope cannot grow, and responsibility becomes assigned to authority representatives. In a dialogic society, the construction of which Tischner encouraged and the creation of which he sought, not only pluralism of hope and avoidance of the subjugation of man to the system are possible, but also assumption of responsibility for one’s choices.³²

Tischner lets it be understood that a thorough conception of man and human life is possible only when the anthropological perspective is twinned with the theological one. He stresses that in Christianity the fortunes of God and man are very closely interlinked.³³ In his opinion, Christian thought has a great role to play on condition that Christianity will not run away from the world but will actively participate in it. It is thanks to Christianity—he continues—that good, which is the axiom of the drama, can be experienced most fully. The thinking that Tischner engages in, being inspired by Christianity, is an attempt to break away from the hubbub of the world that good it finds difficult to penetrate. It performs a preparatory role and, through a critique of the voices that drown out the voice of good, thinking is to groom the ears to listen to that which is most important.³⁴

In his disputes, Tischner seeks “God after Auschwitz” and “man after Kolyma.” He is trying to answer the question about what faces God and man have in the wake of all that has happened in our times. He also asks about the possibility of a religious bond between God and man.³⁵ The answers to all these questions can be found only when we do not allow human hope to be reduced to the earthly dimension only, and when we protect individuality against being engulfed by the system, and when we acknowledge man as capable of responsibility. Only a man thus construed is, in Tischner’s opinion, capable of real existence. Only such a man can forge a mature relationship with God. Only from this anthropological perspective can we construct an appropriate theology. Tischner’s disputes are for high stakes. It is worth revisiting them whenever we come face to face with today’s atrophy of hope, pressure of the systems and a lack of faith in our capability to be responsible. But above all, whenever it is difficult for us to find some place for God.

Miłosz Hołda

The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow

6. INFLUENCE ON THE SCIENTIFIC MILIEU

Tischner is one of those philosophers whose impact goes far beyond the field of academic philosophy. Working on human hopes and responding to human suffering were a conscious choice of Tischner’s. The decision to build a philosophy of drama which will help people cope with everyday dramas they face was itself dramatic. Tischner did not want to focus on pursuing a grand and yet removed-from-reality philosophy, but preferred to actively participate in that which was happening around. The participation was the kind that a philosopher is able to pursue: by trying to understand, describe, and suggest possible solutions. But above all by pointing to the values that might serve as answers to the situation at hand.

This attitude of Tischner’s to philosophizing not only translated into the choice of subjects to be addressed in his texts, but also their form. His texts do not constitute a train of reasoning, the effect of which is supposed to make the reader accept the conclusion suggested by the author. They are rather revealing. With a solid background of study of Husserl and a phenomenology seminar led by Ingarden, Tischner tries to guide the reader towards experiences in which he can himself see that which with respect to a given issue is the most crucial. These texts are an invitation to co-thinking, opening up a space of shared drama to the reader. Although sometimes they are quite difficult, they always contain some visible desire for a conversation, a meeting, which can take place centered around the most important issues. Tischner’s impressive oeuvre contains a lot of examples of properly performed philosophical work, but a large part of his output is targeted at the general public, or constitutes commentaries and polemical pieces. Tischner’s influence was not only conveyed through his texts, but also through what he said as a lecturer and a priest.

It would be hard to confuse Tischner with any other author. One can sense in his texts a peculiar “spirit of a serious encounter.” Even if Tischner’s texts are bristling with humor, one still feels that the issue in question thus recounted is nevertheless dead serious. Tischner knew how to talk about very difficult issues light-heartedly. But “light-heartedly” means here: intelligibly and in a way inviting the reader to engage in co-thinking and discussing the issue at hand. “Light-heartedness” was not an end in itself but more of an invitation to follow the same path together.

Tischner wanted to exert some influence and he knew how to do it. But for this influence to be effective, he had to answer the question about whom he in fact was exerting influence on and was talking to. Analyzing the surrounding social reality, he started with the premise that those his words were aimed at were people pushed into hideouts by their despair, who needed something that would help them get back out and be free. Maciej Bielawski writes that Tischner plaited rope which he intended to use to help people come out of hiding. This rope could not have been made otherwise than by using values that constitute an encounter with another man, properly comprehended work and a relationship with God.¹ He managed to combine some unusually difficult features. He did not avoid earnestness and gravity of a situation, he was not afraid of the truth about man; his thinking about man was very clear-headed, but at the same time he did not abandon hope enkindled by the prospect of what man might become if he became himself in a relationship with God. One could relate the words written by Saint Paul in the Second Epistle to Timothy: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and love, and of a sound mind.” Tischner’s thinking was sound-minded and courageous, but also filled with power and love.

All this was enough to make Tischner a guide for his contemporaries. He was not only a highly-regarded thinker, but also an authority who was readily listened to; meetings with him and his advice were very welcome. He was treated as someone who was able to help people understand themselves and the times they were living in. Tischner was aware of the fact that people viewed him as a beacon. He understood his role to be the one of educator, philosopher, but not a politician. Even if he became an informal spiritual leader of the nascent “Solidarity” movement, or a significant participant in the political debates held at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, he did this in the spirit of responsibility for the choices made by people as well as the paths of their lives that the choices might set them on. He became an educator for his listeners, namely the students at the Faculty of Polish Studies at the Jagiellonian University (where he gave lectures in 1976–1997) and the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Krakow (in the years 1980–1997). He also performed the role of an educator for highlanders, as the chaplain of the Podhale Inhabitants Association, and while celebrating Holy Masses for the mother country at the Mount Turbacz chapel every August.

Tischner’s personality was an immensely important element in his influence. Even today some of those who used to listen to him find it hard to separate Tischner’s personality from his thought.² Tischner radiated freedom. He opened up people to new spaces. He brought them to new heights of existence. Tischner’s thought defies simple classification, the best proof of which is the fact that attempts are made to show it against the background of various philosophical schools, and that disputes are held over which one of these Tischner actually belongs to. Some reckon him to be among the representatives of the Krakow school of phenomenology or the Krakow school of ethics. Others place him among the members of the Krakow school of anthropology, or make him one of the authors of the Krakow school of the philosophy of the encounter.³ However, Tischner’s thought appears to have established a separate “school.” The study of his work should take into account the mutual permeation of various themes and propositions that make Tischner stand out against the representatives of all the above-mentioned schools.

An Institute of Józef Tischner’s Thought was established to study his oeuvre; it serves to archive Tischner’s own texts as well as texts on him and his thought. As part of the Institute’s activity attempts are being made at presenting Tischner’s thought against the background of the thought of the philosophers who inspired him and whom he referred to. The Institute conducts publishing activity by engaging in pre-press preparation of Tischner’s as yet unpublished texts as well as by reissuing his books. Works which continue Tischnerspirited thought are published as well. Also, his philosophy is promoted in foreign academic circles by making his texts available in English, thereby bringing out the originality of his thought.

Since 2001 the Tischner Days Festival has been organized, which also serves as proof of Tischner’s impact. It comprises a series of lectures, conferences and philosophical debates which are not only concerned with analysis of Tischner’s views, but are also supposed to highlight new possibilities for the creative development of his thought. They are coupled with cultural and educational events that aim to promote Tischner’s oeuvre and enable people to come into contact with his thought in an artistic form. Every year, on the occasion of the Tischner Days Festival, a Józef Tischner award is granted in three categories: religious writing and philosophical writing that continues the idea of “thinking in values;” commentary journalism or essays on social issues; and pastoral and social initiatives.

Tischner’s philosophical thought constitutes a point of reference for many authors who not only comment on his achievements, but also engage in critical consideration thereof. Graduation theses on Tischner’s philosophy are written, as are single- or multi-authored monographs. Studies not only take account of his philosophical and theological themes, but also investigate his influence on pedagogical, political and social thought. Biographical works are also written; their aim is to place Tischner’s thought against the backdrop of his life and times, showing the context of his philosophical work. There are also a lot of works in the form of testimonies to meetings with Tischner, as evidence of his influence on specific people, reminiscences and anecdotes about his life as well as philosophical and other activity.

A very important testimony to his impact is the fact that many educational institutions of varying degrees are named after Rev. Józef Tischner. After him named are also interest groups, philosophical and social clubs all over Poland, social and civic initiatives, as well as the Krakow Hospice for Children. An increasing number of academic conferences devoted to various aspects of Tischner’s work are organized, as well as meetings, training courses or single lectures aimed at exposing people to his life and thought. Cultural events inspired by his work—theatre plays, films and musical projects—are plentiful. There are also several websites devoted to his life and work.

Even though Tischner’s thought was thoroughly Polish and constitutes the heritage of Polish philosophy to the extent that it has become a classic, Tischner’s impact has gone already beyond Polish borders and continues to do so. The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, established by Józef Tischner and Krzysztof Michalski, was founded to undertake international-scope research into the problems of the philosophy of man, and was Tischner’s first considerable contribution to the European philosophy. The second one was the famous Castel Gandolfo colloquia, which were organized by the institute and to which prominent philosophers and representatives of life sciences and humanities were invited. These meetings centered around the care for the human being.⁴ The influence that Tischner’s thought exerted through the activity and teachings of Pope John Paul II is also noteworthy. Of particular note here is the encyclical entitled Laborem exercens, which features many ideas that can be directly related to the thought pursued by the author of The Ethics of Solidarity.

It is reasonable to believe that the discovery of Tischner by the world is yet to be made. His works are increasingly being translated and read not only at European academic institutions, but also in the USA and South America. Abroad, Tischner is first and foremost renowned as a “philosopher of solidarity.”⁵ Knowledge of his “philosophy of drama,” texts critical of Marxism and texts on anthropological issues⁶ is also increasing. The planned publication of Tischner’s works, for instance in Italian, will certainly contribute to the greater recognition of his thought.

Tischner’s philosophy arises out of a specific situation and attempts to illuminate a specific situation. It was developed to act as a remedial measure aimed at very specific human miseries that Tischner encountered in his philosophical and pastoral work. As Karol Tarnowski observes, even though his philosophy is targeted at contemporary man, and not someone in general, and even though it is deeply rooted in the situation of a country particularly afflicted and sorely tried, it still offers some findings concerned with commonplace miseries affecting the contemporary human condition.⁷ It is worth considering which of the themes addressed by Tischner are particularly universal and promising. It is also worth trying to point out the issues which—interpreted outside the context of Tischner’s personality and its overwhelming influence—might prove to be the most seminal. I believe that the most crucial of these themes is the “philosophy of reason” and the “turn to God.”

The former is concerned with, although not limited to, the idea of “religious thinking” as advanced by Tischner. His “philosophy of reason” is composed of a “negative” (a critique of erroneous approaches to reason) and a positive part (a proposal of “religious thinking” which would fulfil man’s cognitive needs). Tischner turns against the tendency, which is characteristic of contemporary thought, towards overreaching demarcation between particular domains of cognition. He acknowledges that the influence of the science-formative reason is overwhelming, but that reason, which contributed to the scientific and technological advancement of humanity, is not one single problem. It is the fact that the absolutizing science-formative reason loses the human drama out of sight. Yielding to the dictates of reason is not the only danger. Another one, which is as it were situated at the opposite end, is an escape from reason, choosing the path of a cult of romantic aura, immersing oneself in that which is “spontaneous, elementary, Dionysian.” Some other errors consist in shutting oneself within one kind of philosophy and absolutizing methods, clinging to dogmatic formulas, or, last but not least, equating various kinds of rationality which are in a sense supposed to act like islands in the sea of irrationality.⁸ In a situation thus outlined, Tischner defends the ideal of the pluralism of rationalisms. This ideal offers a chance to fit between the Scylla of the science-formative reason and the Charybdis of irrationalism.

In Tischner’s opinion, the realization of this ideal can only be possible when reason “becomes even more reasonable than before.” In a sense, reason needs to deny itself to be able to recover itself. The path leading to the recovery of reason is “heroic thinking,” thanks to which reason overcomes its own inertia with the aid of the powers it finds inside itself.⁹ An immensely important element of “heroic thinking” is a recovery of the lost obviousness. Thanks to such measures it is possible to restore the science-formative reason to its due place within the space of thinking and to regain these dimensions of rationality that need to be taken into account in the quest for the truth.¹⁰

Tischner shows the capacity for entrustment as the necessary condition for full reasonableness. In spite of a popular opinion, entrustment is not, as Tischner believes, in contradiction with reasonableness, but it is its fulfilment. Thanks to entrustment, thinking takes wing, breaks out of its limitations.¹¹ Another vital element of reasonableness is the capability to accept witness. Witness allows man to move around the sphere of good and evil,¹² which is of crucial importance to human drama. Proposed by Tischner, “philosophy of drama,” which is not only based on erroneous approaches to reason, but also contains positive and creative content, may become an interesting topic of discussion and further research. Even though the theme itself is old and has been raised by philosophy many a time, the situation in which Tischner formulates his proposal is new, and given this, his “philosophy of reason” may prove to be very inspiring.

Another thing is that which I would call a “turn to God.” Tischner’s thought revolves around God and His affairs all the time. It revolves around this issue undoubtedly on account of man. God is the answer to human miseries, a source of hope, a remedy for the reduction of man to the earthly affairs only. However, the thesis that Tischner thinks about God only on account of man is untenable. Tischner asks about how man needs to be structured to be able to engage in a relationship with God.¹³ At the same time, he points to “opening,” “a restless heart,” “absolute longing,” “desire” present in the profundity of finite freedom as conditions for such a relationship.¹⁴ In the light of some of Tischner’s statements, one might venture a thesis clearly formulated by Anna Karoń-Ostrowska. She claims that “the religious drama, the drama of the encounter with God, is the only one that Tischner finds interesting, and the encounter with another man is only a substitute for the most important one in which everything reaches its fullness.”¹⁵

Tischner did not settle for seeing man through the divine prism and within the horizon of the relationship with God. Tischner sought God Himself. He reaches the conclusion that “in fact there is only one drama for a person: the drama involving God. Any other drama or a dramatic thread is but a fragment of this drama.”¹⁶ That is why he invites the reader to speculation, which is the best exercise of the mind that we, contemporary people pinned down to the ground by the requirement for an experiment,¹⁷ need so badly. It is also for this reason that he comments on theological works on the mystery of the Holy Trinity. As he ponders the significance of the turn towards man, which took place in the theology of the 20th century, Tischner writes: 

This may only be a small fraction of the history of thought, after which—equipped with new knowledge of man—we will inquire about God. Are the works by the above-mentioned authors on the mystery of the Holy Trinity, as well as numerous studies they were based upon, perhaps not some kind of a harbinger of a change in the spiritual orientation of our world? If it was like that, that would mean that the spiral is now turning towards the opposite point, and after the trials concerned with understanding—or misunderstanding—of man himself, we once again wish to understand God.¹⁸ 

Turning to God might be viewed as a manifestation of philosophical longing for redemption, which Tischner addresses in the context of Heidegger’s philosophy,¹⁹ and as evidence that Tischner’s philosophy is characterized by some essential mystical dimension.²⁰ As he comments on the works by Saint John of the Cross, Tischner writes something that could be related to his own philosophy: “I am a mystic who turns into a philosopher describing experience.”²¹

In Tischner’s thought, both the “philosophy of reason” and the “turn to God” have Christian roots. In his opinion, the presence of Christianity constitutes a chance of a revival of reason through pointing to shared ethos, in the sphere of which both reason and faith dwell. Tischner believes that Christianity may prove to be invigorating to contemporary thought by restoring a sense of open, hope-building mystery to it. Christianity reminds thinking that there are still mysteries around and that they open up, and bearing this in mind lets “thinking become thinking.”²² Tischner delves into Christian ideas also because he is convinced that the religious drama is an ideal drama. Even though he does not provide a definitive answer to the questions whether every drama in every religion, and whether a subject of every variety of a religious drama are the same, it is no accident that he delves into the Judeo-Christian tradition and its attendant figurativeness in order to illustrate his thoughts and find substantiation for his analyses.²³

Through his “philosophy of reason” and “turn to God,” Tischner positions himself within a wide-ranging and extremely interesting movement of the new understanding of the limits and possibilities of human cognition as well as understanding of God in the face of scientific discoveries and historical experiences of the 20th-century people. This part of work that he does is primarily related to the understanding of God as viewed from the perspective of interhuman relationships and searching for His traces in the sphere of an encounter. When juxtaposed with investigations by such thinkers as Rev. Michał Heller, who searches for God’s traces in the natural world, it may produce an extremely interesting effect of a conception of Christian faith that allows our contemporaries to discover its meaning and inexhaustible wealth anew. I believe that the most impactful aspect of Tischner’s thought is his reinterpretation of Christianity, the most significant elements being “philosophy of reason” and the “turn to God.”

Andrzej Tarchała

The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow

7. GLOSSARY

Agathological horizon

The agathological horizon is a horizon within which all the manifestations of the other and of I are governed by a peculiar logos—the logos of good and evil, of that which is better and that which is worse, of an up and a down, victory and failure, redemption and damnation. [Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, Paris 1990, p. 53]

The Other

… the other is the one who can become You or He, and for whom I too can become He or You. However, “this” or “that” is not the other. … the other is not a thing among things, nor an object among objects, but the other is a subject, the other I who becomes You or He for me, and with whom I can also enter into the Us-bond. [“Inny,” in Inny. Esej o spotkaniu, Kraków 2017, pp. 7–8]

Axiological “I”

The core of selfness is “I.” What kind of “I”? What does “I” mean? The “I” is an “axiological point” of selfness. The primal “I” of man is an axiological “I.” It is a value capable of engendering values—choosing the good which has chosen “I.” “I” is not a being. Nor is “I” a non-being. “I” is a value that calls for being turned into a being. Even though “I” is not a being, it wields consciousness—wields it as an internal value confirmed with every choice, every creation of a value. The axiological “I” is the “center” of participation; in a sense, the entirety of participation that man is capable of centers around the axiological “I.” [Myślenie w żywiole piękna, Kraków 2004, p. 327]

Body

What is a body? It is a dramatic value; thanks to it, a man can participate together with another man in the drama of life. Obviously, it is not easy, because a man does not have a uniform and self-evident concept of life. Still, one thing seems certain: a man can acquire essential knowledge about his own body through most profoundly construed dialogue—a dialogue of reciprocity—with another man. I recognize my own body through another man, and another man recognizes his own body through me. Essential knowledge about one’s own body is neither a result of objective study, nor a result of subjective experiences, but it arises from the drama of life, in which encounters with others are of crucial importance. [Myślenie w żywiole piękna, Kraków 2004, p. 32]

Conscience

Conscience is a man’s natural “ethical sense,” which is to a great extent independent of various ethical systems. There are many ethical systems, but only one conscience. It precedes those systems. In man, conscience constitutes an independent reality, in a way somewhat reminiscent of reason and will. … Conscience is a voice calling inside man. What does conscience call for today? First and foremost, it calls upon man to want to have conscience. … Conscience is a sense allowing man to read signposts. Only conscience knows which signpost needs to be heeded here and now. Christian thinkers used to say: conscience is God’s voice. This meant: The god who is not speaking through man’s conscience is not a true God, but an idol. True God touches conscience first. [Etyka Solidarności, Kraków 1981, p. 11]

Conscientivity

What is conscientivity resp. self-consciousness?

The sphere of conscientivity is above all a sphere of consciousness in the literal sense of the concept. That which appears or can appear in this sphere is there as something that the “subject” of consciousness is more or less acutely conscious of.

… here I define self-consciousness, resp. conscientivity, as a mode of being of such contents as pain, pleasure, joy, an act of decision, an act of love, an act of judgement, etc. This mode of being is irreducible to either real, ideal, intentional (Ingarden) or any other existence. [“Fenomenologia świadomości egotycznej,” in Studia z filozofii świadomości. Dzieła zebrane, Kraków 2006, pp. 131–134]

Dialogue

A man connects with another man through dialogue in which the key role is played by questions and answers. I ask and await answers. I listen to questions asked to me and I give answers to them. Some period of tension elapses between the moment the question is asked and the moment the answer is provided, in which an experience of special obligation is constituted: awareness that “I” asked ought to give an answer to the other. [Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, Paris 1990, p. 147]

One might say that “dialogue” means as much as “logic between two” (persons). Let us imagine two persons next to each other; each one sees the world from their own perspective, in their own time, from the depth of their personal, unique feelings. Can there be any understanding between them? Yes, there can, on condition that something in common appears—something that links them despite their differences. The linking factor is a word—logos, “idea,” a “concept.” A shared logos manifests itself in a conversation. …

A dialogue is possible wherever there are personal identities. Before they begin exchanging words, persons need to choose each other as partners in dialogue. I want to talk to you. Will you agree to listen to me? Thus, dialogue is based on choice. The dialogue between God and Abraham begins with God’s call: „Abraham, Abraham!” Calling means that God has made the choice. What will Abraham do? Will he respond with a choice, or will he flee like Adam? Choosing means that the one who chooses is ready to listen, and to listen means to transfer to the situation where the talking person can be found. Thanks to such an exchange of places and viewpoints, understanding and communication can arise. Of course, there would be no choice or exchange of places, if there were no mutual recognition of values: by choosing, I recognize that the other is a value to me; the other, who gives an answer, recognizes that I am a value to him. In dialogue, I become I-for-the-other. Out of reciprocity arises the Us of dialogue. [Myślenie w żywiole piękna, Kraków 2004, pp. 150–152]

Dialogic evil

Evil is an apparition, an evil apparition—where the adjective evil only analytically expresses that which is contained in the very concept of an apparition. An apparition lies and at the same time does not lie; it threatens and tempts; it takes away one hope and revives another. The reality of the apparition is not the same as the reality of being, nor the reality of a defect in being. An apparition is interreality that arises between one man and another as a result of shared dialogic structures. [Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, Paris 1990, pp. 152–153]

Drama

A man’s manner of living consists in taking part in the drama—he is a dramatic being. There is no other manner of living. His nature is about dramatic time and two openings—the intentional opening up to the scene and the dialogic opening up to another man. … Man takes part in the drama in a manner different to the objects in the scene. He is a dramatic being in a different sense than the one in which he is a man or a woman, a child or an old man. Taking part in some drama, man is more or less aware that—metaphorically speaking—his doom or salvation is in his hands. [Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, Paris 1990, p. 13]

Encounter

We experience the other by encountering him. To encounter the other means something more than to be aware that the other is right there next to me, or by my side. … An encounter is an event. An encounter entails a vital change in the sphere of communion. He who encounters, goes beyond—transcends—himself in the dual sense of the word: towards the one for whom he can bear witness (in the direction of the other) and towards the one before whom he can bear witness (before Him—the one who demands witness). That is why the following needs to be said: to encounter means to bear witness to Transcendence. [Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, Paris 1990, p. 27]

Ethical experience

What kind of experience opens us up to good and evil while teaching us about objectivism?

This question needs a clear answer: the primal experience providing man with ethical self-knowledge is the experience of another man. If it is captured at its core, undistorted by technique, the experience of another man is an ethical experience par excellence. We are capable of experiencing nothing else, no thing, no landscape, no animal the way we are capable of experiencing another man. That is why this experience can serve as the source of our ethical self-knowledge. It contains the underpinnings of fundamental ethical values: truth, justice, fidelity, etc. It contains the basis of objectivism for our ethical obligations. Here lies the source of true responsibility for the outside world. If anyone lets his sensitivity to another man be dulled, all his morality and all his ethical thinking will become suspended in void. [Myślenie według wartości, Kraków 2000, p. 363]

Face

A face is superiority, a concretized glory, a unique sublimity, man’s greatness. It can inspire, delight, carry one above the prose of the world and towards the poetry of existence. But it is also fragility, being lost, harm or misery. It bears signs of past pains, and there are places for future pains. It is above all in man’s face that his beauty and life pass. It is in man’s face that a teardrop and dying appear. A face is fixed to the cross of existence. [Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, Paris 1990, pp. 69–70]

Freedom as a mode of existence of good

Freedom cannot be interpreted from the perspective of the categories serving to describe “being as being,” e.g. the categories of power, powerlessness, cause, effect, being relatively or absolutely isolated, and last but not least “nothingness.” … Freedom recovers its meaning only when it is approached “outside being and non-being” as a mode of existence of good; man is free, because in him “good has its being.” [“Wolność jako sposób istnienia dobra,” in Spór o istnienie człowieka, Kraków 1998, p. 293]

God

As a dramatic being, God is someone more than “being absolute.” He is rather “Good absolute” that has “assumed the form of being.” … Good is tri-Personal, filled with love, knowledge and self-knowledge, and internally free.

Hence, in order to come at least a bit closer to understanding God, one needs to rise in thinking above “being and non-being.” [Spór o istnienie człowieka, Kraków 1998, p. 343]

The Christian religion of dialogue between man and God was made possible, because God Himself became a foreigner, an orphan and a widow. Thus, religion is no longer about the lofty feeling of rapture that lets man soar up to heaven, nor is it about rational speculation about the highest of beings, but about responsibility for the answer that the one who is asked and called upon ought to give to the one that asks and calls. [Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, Paris 1990, p. 79]

Good

In a sense, good is an axiom of the drama. But it is no preconceived axiom of reason that one can doubt against. If it is really supposed to be good, good cannot be reasoned out, but it must be experienced. In what way can good be experienced? Referring to the poetical and religious figurativeness, one needs to recognize that good is more audible than visible. The voice of good permeates through the world noise to call man to something absolute. In this sphere, thinking only plays a preparatory role: it is to prepare the ears for hearing. It achieves its aim by criticizing the voices that drown out the voice of good” [Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, Paris 1990, p. 91]

Happiness

The opposite of despair is happiness. If despair is about “sickness unto death,” then happiness is something like “robustness unto life.” Man is all healthy—sound is his soul, body, reason and will, sound are his senses and feelings. Health keeps bringing and breeding life. Such a life is a symptom of blessing. Happiness is a manifestation of ever-increasing life. [Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, Paris 1990, p. 257]

Homo sovieticus

… homo sovieticus is an enslaved client of communism—he fed on the goods offered by communism. Three values were particularly important to him: work, participation in work, a sense of dignity. … Homo sovieticus is a postcommunist form of an “escape from freedom.” [“Homo sovieticus,” in Etyka solidarności oraz Homo sovieticus, Kraków 1992, p. 125]

Hope

The fundamental dimension of hope is orientation towards the future. Hope is a spiritual power that stealthily controls the human drama, enables man to overcome obstacles in the present and face the future. [Myślenie według wartości, Kraków 2000, p. 453]

All hope is characterized by some dimension: it is a shallower or deeper hope; its vision is narrower or broader; it expects more or less; it is prepared to suffer bigger or smaller losses. What determines the dimension of hope? … the dimension of hope is determined by an experience of values. Within hope, cognition of the axiological aspect of reality develops. … Hope plunges man into some kind of anticipation. However, it is not ordinary anticipation where one anticipates nightfall, moonrise or the first star. …

Hope arises out the experience of the changing nature of the world and man. It sees this changing nature in a special manner. It is not about the change in condition or place, but the change in the links between the world and the values that become realized in the world. Values might not become realized. …

Through the experience of hope … not only do the values that may be realized in the world reveal themselves, but I too reveal myself as a value. By experiencing hope, man experiences himself as a value. In hope, the human “I” is an axiological “I.” In the name of this value, hope responds to the prospect of threat with its “no.” By saying “no” to threat, hope raises man to the rank of value. Man’s dignity tells the story of itself in the word of hope. [Świat ludzkiej nadziei, Kraków 1994, pp. 296–298]

Justification

The road to salvation leads in the direction opposite to that of the road to damnation. The road to salvation is a road of ever-renewed faithfulness to Good, which keeps calling. …

The state of salvation can be thought of as a state of justification which is opposed to the state of damnation. [Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, Paris 1990, pp. 256–257]

Man

… man is a dramatic being. … To be a dramatic being is to: live in the present time, with other people around and the ground under one’s feet. Man would not be a dramatic existence but for these three factors: opening up to another man, opening up to a scene of drama and to the passage of time. [Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, Paris 1990, p. 11]

Only man is the subject of the drama of good and evil, because only man participates in both the latter and the former; thanks to him, or through his fault, good and evil enter the world. [Myślenie w żywiole piękna, Kraków 2004, p. 286]

… man is different from other creatures on earth in this respect: he can respond to evil with good. Even angels cannot do this, because angels do not experience any evil. Man does experience evil. And he can use evil to build good. He can create good out of the evil that afflicts him. That is what man’s greatness, dignity and creativity are about. Man cannot create a tree, stones, houses out of nothing, but he can work a greater miracle: he can create good out of evil. In this way, man can write off the old, former world and create a new world. In this way, man can become the corner stone of the Kingdom of God on earth. [Wiara ze słuchania. Kazania starosądeckie 1980–1992, Kraków 2009, p. 229]

Person

… I suggest the following definition: a person is a subject of drama. To be a subject of drama means to participate in drama. Participation in drama requires that a participant in drama be “something more” than a thing, an object and generally a “being-in-itself.” He not only just has to be, but also somehow relate to himself, be a “being-for-itself.” It seems that the key to the mystery of the person is the word “for.”

A being-for-itself is a kind of being that can accept its existence (its being) as a task for itself. It is aware that something not only can but also needs to be done with this being. It is possible to waste or lose one’s being. In a person, being—being by itself—becomes a problem. What does that mean more precisely? This does not only mean that a person is somehow aware of his being, but also that he “senses it” as its good or evil, depending on the circumstances. The word “for” expresses a person’s essential position which arises out of the fact that a person can “possess himself” or “not possess himself.” Inside the person the original word “be” in a sense loses its power in favor of the original “have.” “Have” conditions “be.” A person is himself when he has himself. [Myślenie w żywiole piękna, Kraków 2004, p. 159]

Reciprocity

Reciprocity means that we are the way we are through each other. This ‘through’ means: we can blame each other, or we can be grateful to each other. [Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, Paris 1990, p. 83]

Religious thinking

The man whose reason is seeking faith, and whose faith is seeking reason thinks in a religious manner. His faith becomes manifest in his thinking, and his thinking becomes manifest in his faith. There is no unbridgeable divide between faith and thinking. Nor is there any endeavor to destroy the one with the other. Religious thinking arises out of the recognition of the laws of religion and the laws of reason. By recognizing the laws of reason, faith becomes thinking; by recognizing the laws of faith, reason shares in its nature. [Myślenie religijne, w: Myślenie według wartości, Kraków 2000, p. 336]

Solidarity

If the word “solidarity” were to be somewhat more precisely defined, then it would perhaps be necessary to delve into the Gospel and look for its origins there. The sense of this word is defined by Christ Himself: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.” What does it mean to be solidary? It means to carry another man’s burden. [Etyka Solidarności, Kraków 1981, p. 6]

Truth

The truth is a first-order value, because it is only through the truth that man can find God, and only through the truth can he meet the Church and the Church can meet him. … Also, the idea of the truth is not something external to reason. All activity of reason is activity for the sake of the idea of the truth. … It was exactly the idea of the truth, pondered even more thoroughly, that served as the support and at the same time as the handle that allowed reason to rise above itself—abandon itself in order to regain itself. [Myślenie według wartości, Kraków 2000, pp. 445–446]

Value

An experience of value is the key to ethics. In ethics, another man is a value; I myself am a value; various planes of man-to-man communing are values. [“Etyka wartości i nadziei,” in Wobec wartości, Poznań 1984, p. 55]

The issue of values is usually examined from two perspectives: the perspective of an object that some values “belong to,” and the perspective of a man who is affected by some values, experiences values, or thinks in values. When we say that “our world is a world of values,” we see matters and concrete things. Or rather more “matters” than “things.” A while ago someone was waiting for us, because they had some “matter” to discuss with us, we waited for someone to tell them “something important,” someone was taken ill and we had to buy medicine, someone died and we had to attend the funeral, someone was happy, because they were just having a wedding party. … the human world contains something good and something bad, as well as something that is better, worse and the worst. To some unspecified extent, our world is a hierarchically structured world. In it we find matters, objects and people organized according to some more or less permanent hierarchical order. … The problem of values can also be considered from the perspective of man. … As people we are forever on the move: we are striving after something, fleeing from something, wishing for something and fearing something; we are nurturing some hope or despairing; we love someone, while we cannot love someone else; we are affected by joys and worries. And thus we are reduced to the never-ending need to “give precedence to one thing over another,” the necessity of “preference.” … Therefore, it transpires that our world is a world of hierarchical order, and our thinking is preferential. [Myślenie według wartości, Kraków 2000, pp. 479–481]

Work

… work is a special form of conversation between one man and another, which serves to maintain and develop human life. Or more briefly: work is a conversation in the service of life. [Etyka Solidarności, Kraków 1981, p. 19]

… in the Offertory we hear the following words: “Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you: fruit of the earth and work of human hands....” The same goes for wine: “we have received the wine we offer you: fruit of the vine and work of human hands....” This bread and wine will in a moment become the flesh and blood of the Son of God. This is profoundly meaningful. Thus the ultimate horizon of work shows itself to us. But for human work there would be no bread or wine. But for bread and wine the Son of God would not be among us. God does not come visiting us through the works of nature: sacred trees, water, fire. God comes to us through the first works of culture: bread and wine. Work that produces bread and wine paves the way for God. Every kind of work shares in this work. Our work as well. In this way our work—the work done by each and every one of us—will prove to be the paving of the way for God. … Work is about reciprocity. But it is not only about reciprocity involving people. It is also about reciprocity involving God, who—by working through grace—sanctifies the world. [Niepodległość pracy, w: W kręgu filozofii pracy, Kraków 1983, pp. 7–8]

II. JÓZEF TISCHNER: SELECTED WRITINGS

Selected and edited by

Andrzej Tarchała

Translated by

Łukasz Malczak

THE PHILOSOPHY THAT I PURSUE

J. Tischner, Myślenie według wartości (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2000), pp. 5–9.

I wonder where I should look for the philosophy “which I pursue”: in published texts or in my dreams. … Every now and then I “daydream” about what philosophy we should really pursue today, what questions we should pose, whom we should engage in polemics against so that we do not languish on the margins of the worldwide philosophical movement. I used to believe that those dreams of mine were some kind of planning. Today I know that nothing will come of them. All that emerges is a compromise between the dreams and temporary needs. So far it has frequently transpired that a temporary need is uppermost.

Let us consider a temporary need.

I will admit it openly: “my philosophy” bears the distinct imprint of the conditions under which I have been living and working. The crux of the matter is straightforward. It so happens that I first began studying philosophy, and only then did I really encounter man. I began learning philosophy mainly from Thomism. It was the kind of Thomism that we could afford back then. I don’t think it was a bad kind. And then came the encounter with a specific human being. I became a priest with “an entitlement to philosophise.” Talks with people, meetings and partings followed: a confessional, a religious education lesson, a sermon, attending a funeral, and… moments snatched for studies. In the meantime, I was really lucky: I met Roman Ingarden and under his supervision I began my phenomenological studies. And then the same pattern: a confessional, a sermon, a religious education lesson, a walking tour of the graveyard, a visit to a sick person.I took my doctoral rigorosa while I was leading my first retreat for students.

What was the outcome of these meetings?

It was a discovery that the contemporary man has entered a period of severe crisis of his hope. A crisis of hope is a crisis of the basics. In the past people would kill in the name of faith in the superiority of their own hope over other people’s hope. Today they “smother” each other with their own hopelessness.

This opens up special tasks and a special field of responsibility for philosophy. For me it meant a spiritual parting with Thomism. At that time, I was lecturing on philosophy, having returned from abroad. That parting was to be discussed openly. Thus I wrote The Decline of Thomist Christianity. The thesis of the paper was simple: it is not Christianity that is going through a crisis, but one of its interpretative versions. Christianity continues to be a chance.

Consequently, I came to be reckoned as belonging to the phenomenologists … particularly interested in the “axiological fundamentals of Christianity” … . But it is not these classifications that are of utmost importance to me. The most important thing was the name that I found to define the crisis.

Now was the time to provide the answer. It followed in two directions, and both of them were equally determined by temporary needs.

The first direction: popularisation. In Poland there is a tremendous need to popularise philosophy, especially contemporary philosophy. People want to be told about a variety of “isms.” The reason for this is not so much snobbery; they are earnest about that. There is no escaping this need. Hence essays about Marcel, Heidegger, Lévinas, Ricoeur, Scheler and many others. All this results from lectures, conferences, seminars. Incidentally, there is a question: what “ism” shall I subscribe to? I was contrarian and so I determined to do philosophy “without a label.” Phenomenology is merely a method. To some extent everyone is a phenomenologist. But a method is no „ism.” However, not all was contrarian about that resolution. There’s an old truth: he who decides to philosophise should get off the back of a classic thinker. I’ve tried getting off the backs of classic thinkers. This does not however mean that I am cutting myself off. I am well aware how much I owe to Scheler and Lévinas. But I also know that when I came face to face with our crisis of hope, I had to single-handedly think up and mete out words. What then was the ultimate goal of popularisation? I tried to summon up the succour of my most familiar European thought to save our Polish hope. Thus I exacted tribute of them for the bulwark and the like.

I was also being urged to do the opposite. They said: you must let the world know about you, engage in international dialogue, show that we, too, understand hermeneutics, historicity and epiphany of the face (that’s Lévinas). It’s a beautiful temptation, but I find it impossible to fulfil it. I am selfish by nature. My intention is not to save the hope of the Germans by showing them Husserl, or the one of the French by teaching them Bergson or Ricoeur. I, for my part, cannot allow myself not to know these gentlemen. I should know them, because knowing them may be of some use while looking for answers to the questions begotten on this soil. Selfishness is always an origin of narrow-mindedness. I chose to be a narrow-minded and obtuse philosopher of the Sarmatians. I try to rant at them and provide them with sound advice. Fortunately, they are reluctant to listen to me, so I won’t be apportioned much blame at any rate.

The second direction: looking for ways out of the crisis of hope. Let me put it in the simplest possible terms, invoking a well-known fact. In Poland we have the figure of Father Kolbe, who—whether you like it or not—is part of our recent history. Father Kolbe is more than just a Franciscan friar who sacrificed his life for a fellow being. He is also a living incarnation of our Polish philosophy of man, which runs in our blood, and yet has never been fully described. The offering of the West includes: existentialism, structuralism, cybernetics and theory of behaviour on top of that. The fact of Kolbe is absolutely beyond it all. No other modern current of philosophical anthropology has afforded man such a testimony as the one bore by Father Kolbe in his deed. Heidegger says: “the being which this being is concerned about in its being is always my own.” Sartre says: “hell is other people.” Lévi-Strauss says: “hell is ourselves.” Another structuralist says: “end of man.” And we have Kolbe. If only just Kolbe! There must have been many unaccounted for! And that is our problem: a lack of a clear philosophy of man goes hand in hand with extraordinary sensitivity to man’s matters. We really did not murder our kings, nor finish the wounded off. We played the “class game” in a childlike manner; we did not set Dostoyevsky-style “goat’s demons” on our fellow countrymen. We would even go as far as to foist a bribe on the devil for the sake of a damned soul. Still, “isms” reign supreme on the pages in our history and our textbooks. So what is the nature of our paradox?

There is one exception: psychiatrist Antoni Kępiński. He knows more about man than Freud, Heidegger or Lévinas do. In my opinion, his is the first Polish philosophy of man—with a Polish feel, created in the Polish style, emerging from the Polish kindness, but universally wise. At the same time, it offers an extraordinary way of saving man from the world and from himself. What is more: a work readily snapped up by all, and at the same time miraculously absent from the pages of the recent works on philosophy of man.

Is there some Polish horizon affording a way out of the Polish crisis of hope? I think there is one. Kolbe discovered it, but he did not name it. He just did what he did. It lies in the domain of philosophy to: understand and name. Here I can discern a chance and a challenging task. Such, more or less, has been my quest in the department of “philosophy without a label.” What will tomorrow bring? The question touches on dreams. It is difficult to talk about dreams. I think that tomorrow I will not go beyond my own shadow either. I know that as I am on my way for another meeting with a human being, another sermon, another popularisation session, deep down there will be this nagging thought that I am not doing what I should be doing. I always have to dig half a metre further than where I suppose my treasure reposes. Even now I get the impression that I am needlessly writing about it. Isn’t it better to pursue philosophy rather than write about pursuing philosophy? And I think it will keep like this for the rest of my life. Then I will say: I haven’t done what I wanted to do; I haven’t done what I could have done; I haven’t even done what should really have been done. What have I done? Others will pronounce on that. Let them think of a label.

I believe that any philosophising, especially if it is us that engage in it, should be preceded by a crucial choice: from among the things one can think about, one should choose the ones one should think about. But that which should be thought about does not come from pages of a book, but from a face of a man concerned about his fate.

Once it was a sense of amazement at the surrounding world that originated philosophy (Aristotle). Later on it was also doubt (Descartes). Now, on our soil, philosophy is born out of pain. The quality of philosophy is determined by the quality of human pain that philosophy wants to express and remedy. He who fails to see that comes close to treason.

THINKING IN VALUES

J. Tischner, Myślenie według wartości, 3rd ed. (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2000), pp. 477–493.

The contemporary thinking about values and hopes which some of us associate with axiology contains some paradox.¹ Above all, for many years now, and especially in our country, the interest in the subject of values has remained strong. It seems unlikely that this is all pure chance. Most probably, it proves that we have realised the situation of some sort of crisis whereby certainty of that which is fundamental has abandoned us. Man has lost spontaneous faith in God and the spontaneous conviction about the constancy of his internal and external nature. What should he then base his decisions on? Values appear to be a handy support, for they require neither the kind of faith that God does nor the kind of knowledge that the nature of man or things do. From their own vantage points, advocates of various outlooks on the world may grant their compromise consent to values. Many sceptics still regard axiology as rescue from nihilism, while for many Christians it constitutes a convenient plane of dialogue with those who have lost confidence in technology and its material forces, but still haven’t managed to regain faith in God. And so one gets to hear: before we agree as to God and the nature of things, let us ensure that between ourselves “truth always means truth, and justice—justice.”

We are, however, witnessing an opposite phenomenon—a process of steadfast departure from axiology, which is particularly pronounced in the West. This can be exemplified by declarations by Martin Heidegger, who continues to be highly influential. He writes, among others: “The bizarre effort to prove the objectivity values does not know what it is doing. When one proclaims ‘God’ the altogether ‘highest value,’ this is a degradation of God’s essence. Here as elsewhere thinking in values is the greatest blasphemy imaginable against being.”² The history of contemporary axiology is typically summarised by Helmut Kuhn.³ In his opinion, axiology reached its height in Friedrich Nietzsche. However, by effecting the well-known “revolution in the sphere of values,” Nietzsche gave dominion over values up to the “will to power.” Thus, the notion of values becomes intertwined with subjectivism and nihilism. The efforts made by Max Scheler, Nicolai Hartmann and other phenomenologists were in vain. The idea of the object is inseparable from the idea of the subject: the more we stress the objective aspect of values, the more audible will be the voice of the subject. Instead of opening up a way leading outside the sphere of the subject, axiology will keep affirming subjectivity.

Therefore, while some view axiology as rescue from a lapse into nihilism, others see it as the road leading straight to nihilism. Why is this so? Many years ago, in Krakow, Roman Ingarden gave a lecture entitled “What we do not know about values.” But back then our thought situation was different. We had not yet realised the radical questioning of axiology on the part of the proponents of thinking “according to the truth of being,” and the questioning by the positivist thought—permanently present—was hardly taken seriously; we believed that phenomenology had overcome positivism, even though positivists knew nothing about it. And so today I think that our issue should be framed differently, or more fundamentally: are we capable, in our thinking, of getting rid of thinking in values? Our question should touch upon the matter of thinking. Many proponents of axiology believe that the subjective basis of axiology lies in the emotional sphere of man, as “reason is blind to values.” Is it really so? Today, in the face of Heidegger-type questionings, we must go searching for the fundamentals of axiology at the heart of thinking itself, otherwise axiology will not fulfil the hopes engendered in the situation of a crisis. Is our thinking the kind of thinking in values, and are we capable of getting rid of such thinking?

The problem of values

The issue of values is usually examined from two perspectives: the perspective of an object that some values “belong to,” and the perspective of a man who is affected by some values, experiences values, or thinks in values. Let us first consider the matter from the perspective of an object, and later on from the perspective of a man. Let us consider it in the most general manner possible without engaging in polemics specifying the used concepts. Let us try to grasp that which appears obvious.

We are now in a lecture hall. Sitting next to us are acquaintances and strangers, professors and friends, people we find more or less likeable, but there are also such objects as chairs, windows, doors and voice-amplifying devices. Each man and each object requires of us appropriate recognition and appropriate behaviour. In order to behave properly in this little world of ours we need to be able to “read values.” We do not greet chairs, nor do we try to find for ourselves some place in the laps of sitting people. If it is not necessary, we do not sit with our backs facing the lecturer’s lectern. Our present world is undoubtedly a world of some values, and in it we are creatures who read values. What does that mean? Let us not dispute about the use of the concepts, but rather look straight into the experience.

When we say that “our world is a world of values,” we see matters and concrete things. Or rather more “matters” than “things.” A while ago someone was waiting for us, because they had some “matter” to discuss with us, we waited for someone to tell them “something important,” someone was taken ill and we had to buy medicine, someone died and we had to attend the funeral, someone was happy, because they were just having a wedding party. We are looking around “our” landscape: here we can see someone’s house, there is a magnificent forest, further away we can see a school, a church and some graveyard trees. You can go on describing, making the description more dramatic and specific. One thing will keep returning: the human world contains something good and something bad, as well as something that is better, worse and the worst. To some unspecified extent, our world is a hierarchically structured world. In it we find matters, objects and people organised according to some more or less permanent hierarchical order. We do not know exactly what evil and good are; we cannot delineate a definite boundary between the one and the other, but still we fail to evade some kind of hierarchy. If truth be told, our main concern in this world of ours is: evade the “evil” which is presently endangering us, and attain the “good” which can be achieved here and now.

Could “our world” be different? At first glance it seems possible. A world devoid of values is not a self-contradictory world. In the homogeneous geometric space that we can think of all shapes and solids are equally important and equally unimportant. We can put it like this: a rock is true to itself, a tree is true to itself, an animal is true to itself and a human being is true to himself. A being is a being, and every being has some properties. However, these properties do not include any one which is goodness, or anger, that which is worse or better. All exists “on a par.” Nietzsche writes: “Evil is God’s prejudice—said the serpent.” We can say: “evil is man’s prejudice,” and good is likewise. Even though the objectivist vision of the world is not self-contradictory, we know that the radically objectivised world, which is devoid of values is really not our world. In the world of “objects” there are solids, shapes, planes, and no object is better than another. In our world, in which we are born and die, there is some home and homelessness, a job and joblessness, a school, a church and a cemetery; in all this we find some peculiar dignity. But in this world there is also starvation and injustice, courage and death, more and less important matters. If someone all of a sudden became completely indifferent to all this, we would be anxious to ask: what’s wrong with this man? Such a question brings back hierarchy to us.

The problem of values can also be considered from the perspective of a man. Again, let us not argue about the precise scope of the words. As people we are forever on the move: we are striving after something, fleeing from something, wishing for something and fearing something; we are nurturing some hope or despairing; we love someone, while we cannot love someone else; we are affected by joys and worries. And thus we are reduced to the never-ending need to “give precedence to one thing over another,” the necessity of “preference.” As Liebert writes: “having made the choice for ages, I need to choose at every moment.” We cannot determine the exact rules that govern our preference giving, and yet we live thanks to the fact that we know how to give preference.

Can we imagine it being different? And again we run up against a paradox: indeed, there is nothing self-contradictory about that. Instead of giving precedence to one thing over another, or showing preference, we can order things along a coordinate: “first this, then that.” I will first eat my lunch, then I will go for a walk, and later I will read a book—all on a par. Thinking like this, I become—as Herbert Marcuse puts it—a “one-dimensional man.” A one-dimensional man knows the use of everything and so orders his deeds, gestures and desires according to his knowledge. This is acceptable too. But the very notion of “one dimensional man” is today regarded as a slap in the face to one’s sense of dignity. We think: if this notion contains the truth about us, then it means that we are experiencing some downfall. Essentially, none of us wants to be a man of one dimension. Thus, the preferential way of our thinking appears to us as a guarantee of authenticity and fundamentals of human dignity.

Therefore, it transpires that our world is a world of hierarchical order, and our thinking is preferential. But isn’t that all our prejudice? Let us repeat it: such a supposition is not absurd, and there is nothing compelling us to accept values. And if there is any compulsion, it is far from the one that forbids us to think about square circles or mountains without valleys. There is a characteristic motif in out thinking in values—a motif of freedom. No one is forced to see values. No one needs to acknowledge them implicitly. The greater a value, the greater the freedom to acknowledge it. A value seems to be telling me: “you can choose me, if you want to.” All comes down to this little “if you want to.” As you stand among values, you are really under no compulsion whatsoever. And the very fact that “you are under no compulsion among values” is a value in itself—a value of freedom. The subject of the experience of a value is a free subject. The appeal of the world of values perhaps comes from the fact that nothing in this world imposes itself on us forcibly. Nevertheless, thanks to values we get a vague feeling that if we don’t acknowledge this world, we risk yielding to some violence.

Hence, values are a perennial source of fascination for human life and thinking. Even Martin Heidegger’s “thinking of Being” seems not to be free from that. The key concepts of Heidegger’s philosophy have a distinctly axiological overtone. For instance, what is “the truth” in the “truth of Being,” if not some “good” of man? What is the “clearing of truth” if not the opposite of the dark? What is “resoluteness” if not an act of ultimate self-determination in the preference expressed at the sight of death? What is the profound and beautiful symbolism of home, mother country, shepherd of Being, with the aid of which Heidegger emphasises our links with existence?

Let us ask yet another question: what experience is our basic source of all axiological experiences, including the thinking experience? When do good and evil, value and disvalue, joy and despair enter our internal realm in such a manner that we do not escape from them, even though—theoretically speaking—an escape like this is always possible? I get the impression that that happens above all at the moment of an encounter with another man. Let me stress the word “encounter.” An unusual power of persuasion dwells in the experience of an encounter. An encounter is something more than a mere “coming into contact” with another, seeing or hearing the other. An encounter is an Event. An encounter initiates a drama the course of which is unforeseeable. Examples of encounters include: on the way to Damascus Saul met the One whom he had been persecuting. In another dimension: Raskolnikov met Sonya (Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky), Levin met Kitty (Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy), Anna met Count Vronsky (ibidem), Frédéric met Madame Arnoux (Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert). As we proceed through an encounter, we know with certainty: the other exists, he is different, and he is transcendent. We also know something else: he and I are in the sphere of good and evil, value and disvalue. I can touch the other, harm him or bring him joy. He can do the same. In this way an encounter inclines me not only towards preferential feeling, but also preferential thinking. Axiology grows out of the very core of who I am.

Encounter

To encounter means something more and something else than to see, hear or shake someone’s hand. What does it mean to encounter? To encounter means to get to directly see the tragic permeating all the modes of being of the Other. What is the tragic? Max Scheler taught us about it. Tragedy is happening wherever some good or some value is vulnerable to destruction by some evil or some disvalue. For the tragic to arise destruction does not need to become fact. The very possibility of destruction, the very ignorance of the outcome of the fight between good and evil is something tragic. That is the way things stand with another man. We don’t know what the actual threat to the other is. To describe the tragic of his we use metaphors, symbols. In all this one thing seems permanent: there is something about the Other that calls for deliverance. We encounter when we clearly see that call and the source it is originating from. Through his sheer presence the Other seems to be saying: “if you want, you can…” I can do what? I don’t know. What am I supposed to want? This I don’t know either. I know I can want or not want. There is nothing happening here out of necessity. The other can always tell me: “you came, because you wanted to.” Whatever happens will happen out of freedom which will, until the very end, believe that it might choose differently.

With the encounter some drama begins. The drama has its time, its place and its leading and supporting characters. This means that the drama has some hierarchy. Each encounter is threatened with a parting, and in each parting a suppressed memory of an encounter persists. The inability to radically detach the one from the other is one of the sources of the tragedy permeating human relations. Hence comes the aspiration to repeat encounter and confirm partings. But if you consider an encounter in itself, it does not have to end tragically. The drama horizon, even if it is open with the phenomenon of the tragic, affords many other possibilities, e.g. a possibility of the triumph of good, a possibility of the apotheosis of man, but also a possibility of comedy or farce. All the varieties of drama are only possible wherever the interhuman space has taken on a hierarchical character, and preferentiality has stormed into the very centre of human thinking.

In an encounter we always meet Someone. Someone we encounter is offered to us in a phenomenon of the tragic. What does that mean? Immanuel Kant writes: “It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will.”⁴ We do not know whether things, objects, landscapes, beings as beings are good or bad. Opinions differ on this point, and our intuition of good is not lucid. If, in spite of all, the concept of good is not a hollow-ringing word, it is so thanks to the possibility that in the innermost recesses of the human soul there is a grain of a truly good will. A man’s will is the only area of reality given to us, where the supposition of good is not in vain. Of course, we can suppose evil, and so we do. The one is inseparable from the possibility of the other. Therefore, we can see the tragic. Therefore, we can hear: “if you want, you can…”

This sets me “on the road” to a radical internal change: metanoia, conversion, or whatever name fits best. We do not know exactly where this road will take us. We have a general inkling of the destination. We know that there is a chasm between a man who kills an encountered life, and a man who nurtures it. To nurture — it means: to let be. In this formula Gabriel Marcel discerned metaphysics of man. Man is he who can “let be.” How does it happen that man “lets be”? An encounter is a moment in which you get to distinctly see the the tragic of the other, and indirectly of yourself (this one, however, we will omit now). Out of the heart of the phenomenon of the tragic emerges a call: “if you want, you can let be.” The point is not to kill with any word, deed, escape or impudence, but to incline existence towards intuitable good, and the good should in turn be inclined towards existence and permanence. Deeds may be manifold: dressing a wound, providing sound advice, handing bread and water. Each one of these deeds will loom from behind the sacrifice horizon which has opened up in me. At the sight of tragedy, a possibility of some sacrifice opens up. What is sacrifice? It is about letting my own good will come to the fore—my will for the good of the other. An act of sacrifice is the ultimate in axiological experience that man is capable of.

Only he who has experienced an encounter can speak about experiencing the origins of some specific good and evil, the tragic, some freedom and the voice of the categorical imperative which is coming to him from the other. Only he who has partaken of an encounter can genuinely sacrifice himself. Outside of an encounter all the above-mentioned notions are devoid of experience. Axiological experience gravitates towards some sacrifice. What kind of sacrifice? We don’t know this either. The key to axiology is an encounter with the other. Only thanks to an encounter can we see human beings on the hierarchically organised scene of life, prefer and understand preferences of others. We allow others to be. Others allow us to be. It’s only thanks to an encounter that we can have the way to God opened. Emmanuel Lévinas writes: “The dimension of the divine opens forth from the human face. … God rises to his supreme and ultimate presence as correlative to the justice rendered unto men.”⁵

At this point a certain clarification is due. The description of man in the cave in Plato’s Republic is a classic axiological text, handed down to us by philosophical tradition (here I am omitting typically religious texts). There, people chained to the rock watch shadows projected on the wall of true reality concealed somewhere beyond them. Plato does not speak about object values or valuable objects, but his description is of a profoundly axiological character. Viewed like this, axiological experience is something extremely simple, as well as it is not overbuilt on anything else. On the contrary, all other experiences are in a manner a superstructure of this experience. What does this experience reveal to us? It reveals the fact that the world we live in is not a world that it could and should be. The primary axiological experience does not tell us that there should be something that is not there. Neither does it tell us that we should do something, or abandon something. All this proves to be secondary. The primary is only this: there is something that should not be there. The visible world is an illusion of the world. Prometheus is hanging nailed to the wall, but why, what for? We all live in a cave full of shadows. What have we been chained like this for? Why do the just suffer? What was the reason for the manner of Socrates’s death? The primary continues to be this: there is something that should not be there. Why? This question has one simple origin—light coming from good. In Greek ‘good’ is called “agathon.” The experience we are trying to describe is a radical agathological experience. The experience is also a radical metaphysical experience, because it urges us to put question marks over existence; it teaches us to distinguish fullness from unfullness, existence from essence, form from matter, cause from effect.

Hence, two kinds of experience can be distinguished: an agathological one and an axiological one. The first one is more primary: it reveals the “negative” side of Everything that surrounds us. It also shows us the tragic of human being. This experience does not contain an experience of obligation yet. As yet I don’t know what my obligation is, how I am obliged and whether I am supposed to be obliged at all. And yet, I am already going though some rebellion. The beginning of thought is marked with a rebellion; a rebellion is the first-born fault of thought. The rebellion already contains preference, germs of seeing hierarchy. Preference is a condition for the possibility of thought. Then, after the agathological experience, or “over” it comes the axiological experience, the core of which is: “if you want, you can…” Only now do I try to see what needs to be done, how to act, whom to save, what to run after, and what to abandon. The agathological experience is above all a revealing one, while the axiological experience is a projecting one. The agathological experience is concerned with being in the light of good, and the axiological experience is concerned with events in the light of that which is valuable. The axiological experience and the resultant axiological thinking become geared towards one basic goal—projecting an event which can help the emergence of tragedy. As such, the axiological experience presumes hope, a sense of strength, the existence of “a sense of reality,” which reveals the values that are feasible hic et nunc.

Thinking in values

What relevance does it all have for the problem of thinking presented in the introduction? Is thinking, in its essence, thinking in values, or are values an external addition to thinking?

We are now propounding two key propositions. The first proposition: that which is agathological provokes thinking. The second proposition: that which is axiological spurs one on to investigations and directs them. The former conditions the latter: thought investigations are possible whenever “some thought has already been provoked.”

Thinking emerges as striving to unravel the mystery of the tragic that the agathological horizon of an encounter confronts us with. The tragic of the human—a model of all experiential tragic—is a moving plexus of that which, generally speaking, is good and that which is evil, that which is valuable and that which is capable of destroying value; a plexus of loftiness and a threat of degradation, life and death, youth and evanescence, happiness and possible misery. The tragic—in order to be the tragic—does not have to become fact; a possibility of tragedy already is tragedy. This unusual plexus of value and that which is capable of destroying value is thought-provoking. Thinking does not awake as a result of simple seeing of that which is. Nor does it arise out of intuition that something does not exist, or that something is a blend of being and non-being. Thinking is not merely reflecting a state of affairs. The right motive that awakes thinking out of slumber is a “plexus of properties” characterising the human tragic. Hegel writes: “It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself. It is this power, not as something positive, which closes its eyes to the negative, as when we say of something that it is nothing or is false, and then, having done with it, turn away and pass on to something else; on the contrary, Spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it.”⁶ That which Hegel calls “the negative” we call “the tragic” here. For it seems that the term “the tragic” more aptly captures the essence of the phenomena that we pointed out and that Hegel bears in mind. To encounter means to look the tragic in the eye, tarry with it, strive to understand it, tame it and disentangle it. However, to encounter also means: be able to shrink from an encounter, flee, become aggressive, give up thinking. To be able to shrink from an encounter or to respond to it is to become aware of freedom. An encounter does not impose anything, not least thinking, but it provokes thought. When taken up, thinking presupposes and confirms freedom.

Why does that which is agathological provoke thinking? Whence does the preferential rebellion of thinking come? Or to be more specific: why does the tragedy of Prometheus, Oedipus, a soul cast into the cave of shadows provoke thinking? What element of the world is responsible for the problematisation (or “mysteriorisation”) of being? In Plato’s image of the cave we can clearly see it—the light of good. But for light there would be no shadows, and without the contrast between light and shadow there is no foundation for any questions. Light is something absolutely simple. Also, it is something that you cannot see, but it lets you see, distinguish, ask. In Plato, light is but a metaphor, a symbol, while we prefer a more straightforward answer. Many thinkers say: light is something perfect, or perhaps even an idea. Let us not get into a dispute over this and rather stick with the simple and basic phenomenon. Well, whether you say “light” or “idea” or something else, one thing will need to be said again and again—problematisation. The dimension of “luminous ideality” problematises everything that we encounter, come into contact with and can encounter or come into contact with. Problematisation is a basic manifestation of operational ideality. Thanks to it every event, every object and being may become a problem, resp. a mystery, for us (let me here pass over the distinction made for that matter by Gabriel Marcel). As I stand confronted with the problem, astonished, I ask: how is this possible? How is it possible that Prometheus was punished? How is it possible that our freedom is hindered. Furthermore: how is it possible for the fullness of being that surrounds us to be illusory fullness? How is it possible that no visible creature can attain the fullness of its existence, or differently: how is it possible that there is a difference between a being and existence? These questions resonate with echoes of rebellion and amazement. Rebellion and amazement are basic preferences of thinking which has been sprung into life by the agathological ideal of existence. Radical philosophical thinking, that is metaphysical thinking, is not born out of amazement at the surrounding world, which is the view held by Aristotelians. Nor does it ask why there is something rather than nothing. Amazement is this kind of affirmation of existence which concludes thinking. Radically philosophical thinking is a form of preferential rebellion against the tragic of the world. But it is not a kind of rebellion that wants to abandon or destroy the world, but the kind the primary aim of which is to understand the world.

Let us now briefly consider the second proposition: that which is axiological spurs one on to investigations and directs them.

The very heart of thinking contains not only preferential rebellion, but also preferential acceptance. Thinking as acceptance is thinking with regard to the value of truth. It aims to distinguish truth from untruth. Truth is an ideal value of this thinking. For truth to be recognised, for a man in an encounter to be understood, he needs to be allowed to be; one needs to engage in dialogue with him, ask him what he thinks, look for an answer when he asks a question. He who at the very beginning destroys a man will never understand. Thinking comes directly from the human capacity for sacrifice; to think one needs to sacrifice something of oneself. Thinking is something more than just a fleeting act of awareness; it is simply a way of manifesting a good will once a man has overcome aggression and the temptation to escape. In the name of what does this overcoming take place? In the name of the ideal value of truth. Thinking on the axiological plane proves to be a preference for truth over untruth.

What truth is this about? Again, while not going into detail, let us point to that which appears to be fundamental. Certainly, it is not about the truth viewed as “conformity of a judgment with a thing.” An encounter is a source of the experience of truth in a dimension more fundamental than the dimension of the relation between man and thing. Dialogue with another man acts as an intermediary in the relation to things. Thus, original experiences of truth need to be looked for in an encounter with the other, and not in contact with the thing. What is the ideal of truth in this sphere? As we have said, that which is ideal problematises the world in its own peculiar way; truth as an ideal problematises it too. Thanks to it, a distinction emerges—which is of essence for the whole course of an encounter and later on for the whole process of man making contact with man—between the human game, the phantom and the human face, that is (in a Greek manner of speaking) an “icon” of the other. The phantom is a man’s mask, the icon is his face. A man can mask his face, put on appearances, pretend. Hence the key problem of an encounter—the problem of the truth of an encounter. Where is the boundary between the mask and the face? The answer requires dialogue. Not only does dialogue dispel interhuman illusions, but it also opens possibilities of dispelling illusions as to things. Dialogue engenders the idea of objectivism, and the idea of objectivism originates the science of the objective world. If there were no encounters, this truth would be non-existent.

Thinking on the axiological plane, thinking that prefers truth to an illusion of truth is most often referred to as simply searching. Thinking as searching is permeated with a special kind of fortitude (courageous thinking as opposed to cowardly thoughtlessness) which hampers impulses to escape from problems and attempts at impudent aggression against the tragic of another. It is also closely associated with hope. As we think, we hope that in spite of all one day we will “think up” something or at least we will “think over” something. That is why axiological thinking is also projective thinking: it entails striving to uncover a plan of the solution to the problem of the tragic. This point seems to be particularly significant. Every time an encounter comes to an end, a question arises: what now? The question is no accident. Thinking that has been brought to life by an encounter with the tragic cannot relapse into sleep until it has solved the problem of the tragic. Otherwise it would betray its own essence. Obviously, there is always a possibility of betrayal; there are always so many matters that have not been fully thought through, but this goes against the grain of thinking. It is in the nature of thinking to project events with capacity for overcoming the tragic.

At this point we touch upon one of the final manifestations of thinking as thinking in values. We have been through our rebellion, our childlike temptation to escape and the adolescent urge to become aggressive. We are full of hope for understanding. Along with progressive understanding, in our creative imagination crystallised becomes a plan of event that has capacity to save hic et nunc. All our attention is focused on the realisation of the plan. As one can see here, thinking in values, is above all event thinking. It turns out that neither beings nor the so-called “valuable objects” are the original residing place of values in the world—events are. In the notion of an event Martin Heidegger found profound metaphysical meaning. In an event dwells a thought about some gift. What gift? Whose gift? Whatever the gift might be and whoever the gift-giver might be, one thing is always obvious: it was help with coming out of tragedy and some form of self-sacrifice. Sacrifice first became revealed in thinking preference. Someone did not escape, did not destroy, but did some thinking and, starting with this, they let be.

Thinking is a spirit’s answer given freely to that which provokes thinking and that which enables and directs investigations. Nothing is as thought-provoking as an encounter with the other. In an encounter we get to clearly see the tragic of being; an encounter opens an agathological and axiological horizon of existence. An encounter is an event and as such constitutes certain a posteriori: it begins with an experience. At the same time, it is possible thanks to some ideal a priori which secretly rules its course and which precedes it. The presence of that which is a priori urges one, inter alia, to repeat encounters. No specific encounter can attain the fullness of its truth; each is overshadowed by a possible parting. Could this be the way in which the mysterious fate is preparing man for the truest encounter of all? We know that philosophy provides us with many, not infrequently opposing concepts of ideal a priori, which secretly governs our life and thinking. Plato and St Augustine would deepen the symbolism of light. Descartes and Emmanuel Lévinas, who refers to him today, point to a dimension of infinity which conditions all thinking of finiteness. These are, however, later matters and theories, overbuilt on the experience of problematisation. Let us not probe into these matters. May the encounter and problematisation remain for us an event that awakes us out of slumber and urges us to go on searching.

Axiology and crisis

To conclude, let us once again return to the motif of freedom. Let us ask: does a man need to encounter another man, or could he live his life out without an encounter? As we consider the event of an encounter, we can clearly see: there is no necessity of an encounter. While we do encounter people and God, it all happens as if by accident, by grace. The event of an encounter is a freely-offered gift of time, which surpasses our expectations and notions. “The Spirit bloweth where it listeth.” Freedom reveals itself to us on every quarter.

Thinking in values is forever accompanied by some subtle experience of freedom. Freedom itself becomes a value of thinking in values—a value that is attained, for it is presumed. Let us bring back all the stages of thinking in values and its relations to freedom. We can dispute the hierarchy of light. We can renounce preference. We can destroy the sight of the tragic, or run away from it. We can close up to problematising ideality. We may not ask about the difference between a face and a mask, delighting in a mask that is to our liking. We can also abandon reflection on the plan of an event that might bring some salvation; we can abandon all manner of sacrifice. None of these possibilities are just theory. It is not only science, but philosophy as well that is nowadays seeking for compulsion among obvious things that would exempt man from all freedom. But escape from freedom in itself testifies to freedom. If freedom is everywhere, it must be posited that thinking corroborates itself when it corroborates its freedom. Once again, this fact shows us the profound relationship between thoughts and values.

The radical thinking that we are trying to describe combines that which is agathological and that which is axiological. This means that it is not only a basis for all study of what is—ontology—but also for possible politics. The word “politics” should have its profound meaning restored to. Politics—in the most radical sense of the word—is the study of a plan, a reasonable plan for human sacrifice at the current stage of history.

At the very beginning I mentioned the keen interest that axiology has been arousing in us for many years. Perhaps we have come closer to understanding the deepest origins of the interest. Certainly, we are in a state of some crisis. The crisis is reaching the very bases of humanity: the interhuman relations have been shaken, and so have the relations between man and God. Our thinking is trying to do without hierarchy and preference. In a situation like this, when we direct our interests towards axiology, we do not essentially aim at a polemic against nihilism, nor at searching for a common ground for dialogue with those who think otherwise. At any rate that is not our main point. Our reaching out is characterised by both metaphysical and political meaning: the point is to discover the right plan for the sacrifice that our historical tragic of today is calling upon men of good will to make.

PHILOSOPHY OF DRAMA: INTRODUCTION

J. Tischner, “Wstęp,” in Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie (Paris: Éditions du Dialogue, Société d’Éditions Internationales, 1990), pp. 9–23.

Deliberations on the philosophy of human drama should begin with a definition of the word drama. At any rate, thus usually begins a literary theory of drama. The starting point is the analysis of the Greek word and gradually—by combining and differentiating—a scope of its possible usage is determined. In the process, keeping a clear-cut boundary between the senses becomes a major concern; the word should not merge into other words, nor should it reflect their sparkle. However, such a course of action might arouse a suspicion whereby the philosophy of human drama first and foremost aims at conceptual accuracy. Such an aim, while weighty, is of secondary importance. The primary aim is to restore the proper and peculiar gravity to the word drama. … To understand drama is to understand that a human being is a dramatic being. As we step by step light up the human existence as a dramatic existence, we revive the proper sense of the concept of drama.

To be a dramatic being is to: live in the present time, with other people around and the ground under one’s feet. Man would not be a dramatic existence but for these three factors: opening up to another man, opening up to a scene of drama and to the passage of time. … 

It is time that usually attracts attention first. Here we speak about a special kind of time—dramatic time. Dramatic time is not objective time of mathematically-grounded natural sciences, which account for physical and chemical processes, and changes to the micro- and macrocosm. Nor is it time of living nature, where plants and animals live from birth to death. Nor is it time of internal consciousness in the sense conceived for the concept by Edmund Husserl. To put it in a nutshell, one should say: it is the time that is between us as participants in one and the same drama. Dramatic time binds me to you, and you to me; it binds us to the stage on which our drama unfolds. Temporal binding has some past, lasts in the present and heads into the future. Dramatic time is—to be precise—neither in me nor in you, but between us. It has its own peculiar logic which governs its continuity and irreversibility. One thing must happen first for another thing to happen next. All that happens later bears some trace of that which happened before. This logic cannot be reversed. … The continuity of our time is as if the substance of drama.

Under our feet lies our world—the stage of drama. We tread its boards, we see and hear it, we touch it with our hands. Presentations, representations and theoretical concepts of the stage may differ; one thing will recur forever: the stage is. And so a question arises: what is its mode of being? Various ontologies of the world provide their own answers. Aristotle finds the stage to be a whole lot of things existing autonomously—substances, while George Berkeley considers it to be a perception shared by people—a dream conjured up in their souls by God. But for the people involved in living the drama, the stage of life is above all a plane of meetings and partings, a sphere of freedom, in which man searches for a home, bread and God, and where he finds a graveyard. The stage is at man’s feet. … Man experiences the stage by objectifying it, turning it into a space filled with “objects,” which he then arranges in a variety of wholes that serve him. Objectivization is possible thanks to acts of a particular kind—intentional acts. That is why man’s attitude towards the stage shall henceforth be called an attitude of intentional objectivization.

Around me and next to me are people, particularly those who participate in the same drama as the one I participate in. Contrary to the widely-held belief, I do not see them, I do not hear them, I do not touch them, and I do not notice them at all. This is because that which I notice is only exteriority, and not man as man, the other as the other. Another man as a man can appear only when—not excluding all the “exteriority”—he comes standing in front of me as a participant in my drama. I can neither hear nor see participation in the drama—it requires a completely different opening than the specific opening of the intentional consciousness. Another man confronts me through some claim, as a result of which a sense of obligation rises in me. …

Opening up to the other is of a dialogic character. It substantially differs from the intentional opening. Thanks to the intentional opening a world of objects appears in front of us; thanks to the dialogic opening You appear beside me.

What then is drama? The concept points to man. Man’s manner of living consists in taking part in drama—he is a dramatic being. There is no other manner of living. His nature is about dramatic time and two openings—the intentional opening up to the scene and the dialogic opening up to another man. …

Man takes part in drama in a manner different to the objects in the scene. He is a dramatic being in a different sense than the one in which he is a man or a woman, a child or an old man. Taking part in some drama, man is more or less aware that—metaphorically speaking—his doom or salvation is in his hands. … Convinced that his doom or salvation is in his hands, man guides his life accordingly. This conviction presupposes a special ontological structure of man: man can be a subject of the drama, because he is a being-for-himself. For being the operative word here. Hence familiarisation. Since man is for himself, he can familiarise himself for himself. Participation in drama is familiarisation of oneself with regard to the hope for salvation. …

Consciousness of the scene

The concept of intentionality was coined by Husserl. Acts of consciousness are intentional. This means that in their essence they are directed at some object. Thinking about an object entails thinking about a subject … The object and the subject are closely interrelated as opposites. … This does not however exclude their mutual belongingness, or their unity. In a manner of speaking, the relation between the object and the subject is the one of the unity of opposites.

However, Husserl does not mean a relation between notions. The intentional relation is a relation of the subject of consciousness to the object of consciousness. Husserl—as a result of numerous arduous analyses—came to term this relation a relation of the constitution of sense. Therefore, stating that intentionality belongs to the essence of the act of consciousness, in Husserl’s language means that acts of consciousness engender /generate/ sense—both the objective and subjective sense. The object that Husserl speaks about is an object in the sense of this existing thing here, but the very objective sense (the sense of being an object)—the object in the sense of a correlate of the subjective act of consciousness. The same goes for the subject. The subject is the pure subject of consciousness, a subjective condition for the possibility of all objective sense.

Roughly speaking, the Husserlian idea of intentionality brings to mind two remarks. Above all, it should be assumed that it can be applied for better understanding of the scene conceived of as the world, in which the human drama is taking place. The word in is particularly significant here. We are inthe world just like in the scene. As the drama lasts, our attitude to the scene may change and be different depending on the kind of objects filling the scene. But that which is fundamental does not change. What is that which is fundamental? It is the open possibility for objectification. Bit by bit, the whole world can undergo objectification. It is crucial to understand the meaning of this term well. When we say that some thing undergoes “objectification,” we do not claim that it has acquired something that it did not have before. By this we say that it has revealed that which since the very beginning has been its basis. For any thing to be a thing for consciousness, it must first be its object (an object for consciousness). The objective sense is the basis on which a thing sense can be overbuilt. However, the objective sense—according to the logic delineated by its meaning—is the opposite of the subjective sense. This means that the attitude of man as a dramatic being to the scene is determined by the principle of opposition. The scene is that which at some point is opposed to man. That is why man must “familiarise” it. Man—a dramatic being—“familiarises” the scene, starting off with the opposite which comes to be expressed in the subject-object opposition.

However, the Husserlian viewpoint must be supplemented with the one of Martin Heidegger’s. Seemingly, these are two opposing conceptions but, in fact, they complement each other. It appears that Heidegger’s view can be interpreted in the following way: Heidegger incorporates the Husserlian theory of the origin of objective sense into a general theory of the history of the truth of being. He overcomes the opposition between the subject and the object, showing that it derives from the concept of existence and the history of being. This fundamentally changes the image of the origin of sense. The objective sense, respective the sense of being, is no longer conditioned by the subjective conditions of possibility, but by the subject-transcendent history of the truth of being. Any sense of the object is ultimately determined by an event of the sense of being. Therefore, if objectification is as if a negative side of the process of world familiarisation, then understanding beings according to an event-realised sense of being is its positive side. As a dramatic being, man strives, in its relation to the scene, to overcome the opposition, being oriented towards some harmony and unity with the scene. Striving after unity is each time conditioned by the historical event of the sense respective truth of being.

Husserl’s and Heidegger’s endeavours belong together like two sides of the same coin. They both really speak about man’s relation to the scene. The matter of the man-to-man relation falls outside their perspectives, and when they do speak about it, they do it in a scene-related way, turning man into an object, a being. The attitude to the scene is determined negatively and positively alike. Negatively—it is described by the Husserlian theory of the origin of the objective sense in the consciousness viewed subjectively, and positively—by the theory of the understanding of being through the sense of being, determined by the history of metaphysics. The concept of the object defines the negative boundary of the man-subject relation to the world, while the concept of the truth of being delineates its positive boundary. Between these two boundaries stretches a field of scene familiarisation by the dramatic being—man. It is here that such sense-constitutive acts as building take place: building a house, a road, a temple, an apartment, work, etc. That which I have said here about Husserl and Heidegger is not a textbook reconstruction of their views. My point is rather an interpretation with a view to the needs of the philosophy of drama. Even though these philosophies are not philosophies of drama sensu stricto, they address drama. They, above all, treat of man’s relation to the world. However, highlighting the merits is criticising at the same time. It would be futile to look in the two philosophies for that which is crucial to drama—the theory of dialogic opening up to another man. Neither of the two philosophies goes decidedly beyond the stereotype of monologic thinking. 

Let us pose yet another question: what is the Husserlian object and what is the Heideggerian truth of being? Even though neither of them provides any more details about it, one thing seems to be common to these concepts: they define that which can be recognised not only by an individual subject or an individual existence, but also by others—by every subject and every existence. The used concepts have general meaning. One might say they are abstractions—abstractions that lay claim to intersubjectivity. In the very use of the concepts one can capture the striving to overcome subjectivity and reach some agreement with others, some community. This means that Husserl and Heidegger are building a scene. The construction method and the shape of the structures are different, but there is one thing in common: the scene cannot be a scene just for me, but it must also be a scene for others. And it is in this striving that the fundamental awareness of the presence of another man comes to the fore. Another man proves to be close—closer than the scene. He is present before he appears in the scene as the one whom I meet. He is present as a hidden force that calls for common ground, a road, a place. Since the scene is not supposed to be just for me, but also for others, it must be constructed of something that has general meaning, something that all will find as truly existent. If there was no scene, there would be no “where” of the meeting place.

At this point we come across a hint on where to begin our philosophy of drama. Undoubtedly, of the two openings—the intentional and the dialogic one—the more basic one is the dialogic opening. It is this opening, or strictly speaking, another man—a participant in the drama—present in us thanks to this opening, that as if secretly guides our reference to the scene, while setting an essential condition for this reference: the scene must a shared scene.

Consciousness of the other

The dialogic opening is an opening up to another man: to you, to him and her, to us, you and them. In it, another man is present for me, and I am present for the other. The dialogic opening greatly differs from the intentional one. It does not constitute the object, nor the object-correlative subject, nor is it “geared” towards the sense of being. The concept of opening is a bit malapropos for that matter, since it suggests that the dialogic belongs to the same kind as the intentional. In fact that is not the case. It is more about two aspects of the same thing, where the one presupposes the other; the one permeates the other. Another man is not my object, nor am I his object. But this does not mean that we cannot objectify each other, which was the claim of Jean-Paul Sartre. What is more, the dialogic reference to the scene is not ruled out either. That is what the mutual permeation of the structures of opening is about—up to some point it is possible to objectify humans and to humanise inanimate objects.

At the very beginning I said that another man is present in me—or present by me—through a claim that he arouses in me. This can be seen in the consciousness of the question. The other asks me a question. … He who asks lays claim to an answer. The first answer to a question is the awareness that an answer needs to be provided. We can feel the presence of another man in this needs to. Another man is present by me through that which I need to do for him; and I am present by him through that which he needs to do for me. The bond that is formed between us is a bond of obligation. … Obligations are born in an encounter. … In everyday speech we often get to hear that for an encounter between people to be successful, they need to have common ground for the encounter. And it’s not just about the level of the scene, or a road, house, workplace, etc. It is more about something that can be termed “background” of the encounter. … What is the background of an encounter? It is a broadly-defined sphere of ideas and values that people live by, that is the sphere of that which is so to speak above us, and that which we can never trample on. It is hard to say whether this sphere exists or does not exist, whether it is an entirety of objects or not; it is equally hard to say that it does not exist if it constitutes the background of dialogue. One thing must be stated: it has a binding force as both revelation and obligation. For the persons engaging in an encounter, it as if establishes a new world—a world of important and unimportant matters, significant and trivial moments, sacred and ordinary times—in a word: it sets up hierarchy. As I engage in dialogue with the other, I come towards him emerging from the inside of some hierarchy; and the other who engages in dialogue with me comes towards me emerging from the inside of some hierarchy. The dialogue can only be fruitful if there is some resemblance between our hierarchies, or if they are capable of becoming alike.

The experience of hierarchy is of a special character: you cannot see hierarchy, but you participate in it. Participating in hierarchy can be experienced as attachment and commitment. But it is not about compulsion, because hierarchy has no binding force if we do not consent. There are even degrees of consent which diversify the character of participation. My participation in hierarchy may be deeper or shallower, closer to that which is higher or that which is lower, that which is more associated with action, or that which encourages refraining from action. The same goes for your participation—it can be deeper or shallower, higher or lower, more active or passive. Hence the difficulties plaguing dialogue, but also the need for it.

The concept of participation has a rich track record—ranging from Plato to Thomistic varieties of the theory of participation. Again, it would be difficult to go into the details of this tradition. I would only like to highlight that which seems to be leading astray the theories of participation which are being dusted off nowadays. Most often, and in particular the Thomistic philosophy of participation, they are attempts at developing the intentional theory of object, respective theory of being, and therefore are an element of the philosophy of scene. With the possible exception of Plato’s theory, they pass over the fact that opening up to hierarchy, that is participation, is a dialogic opening whereby the primary given is neither a being nor an object, but another human being—you, him, her, us, you, them. … It is so much easier for us to speak about what the outcome of mutual participation is. The outcome is some shared dramatic thread. Dialogue establishes, reinforces and develops a short- or long-lived, richer or poorer spiritual reality—interhuman reality—which delineates a crucial meaning of the dialogic reciprocity of persons.

This reality is composed of everything that binds, brings closer and engulfs people, but also that which separates, distances and pushes them apart, that which should not be said to be in me or you, or in the scene, but that which is “between us.” Between us is the shared dramatic thread—our drama. It is established and constructed by our participation, and conversely—our participation is established and defined by it. Something is happening between us. More often than not, that which is happening between us leaves a trace in the scene. It may be a home.

Now we can better understand the effect of the dialogic opening on the intentional opening. The intentional opening is directed at the object and always comes from some subject, e.g. a pure subject of consciousness. What is an object? It is a certain minimum—one required for the opposition between it and the subject. What is a subject? It is the opposite of the object—nothing more, nothing less. What is the subject with regard to another man? It is a maximum of possible participation—the participation that approximates identity. The common world of objects may be a world common only for subjects that see in the same manner, and that in their seeing share the same vantage point. Striving after identity by the subjects of consciousness is a special kind of dramatic thread among people. The emergence of such a thread is a prerequisite for objectification. Therefore, dialogic participation in the drama of the identification of consciousness, or more precisely—the subjects of consciousness is the condition for intentional objectification.

Thus, the precedence of the issues of dialogue over any others has once again been confirmed.

The Question of God

… The question of God is a crucial question posed by man as a dramatic being. In itself it is drama. Is there a God? Where is God? Where does God come to meet man from? How can man find his God? Is opening up to God a third opening, apart from the opening up to the world and the opening up to another man? Or is the dimension of time itself of the essence here?

The answers may vary. In Thomistic philosophy God makes his presence felt above all through the scene. In René Descartes’s view God comes to meet man directly, without the agency of the world, and only through the idea of God that man has. For Martin Buber, God comes to meet man through another man. Some find God distant, others find Him close; some believe that God comes to accuse us, others claim that He comes to redeem us. There are also people who think that He does not come at all.

Among the multitude of various opinions and conjectures, one thing is particularly remarkable: there is actually only one drama—the drama with God. Any other drama or a dramatic thread is but a fragment of this drama. If so, then the ideal drama in general is religious drama. Every drama of every religion? No, not every one—only Judeo-Christianity is a dramatic religion in the full sense of the word.

While refraining from a definitive pronouncement on this matter, we will be frequently referring to the Judeo-Christian tradition and the metaphors that derive from it so as to illustrate, or even support our analyses with the material contained therein. Thus, dramatic thinking will reveal itself as thinking from within the metaphor. …

THINKING FROM WITHIN THE METAPHOR

J. Tischner, Myślenie według wartości, 3rd ed. (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2000), pp. 462–476.

It was first thanks to Descartes, and later Kant, that an outlook was established in modern philosophy whereby radical criticism is a characteristic feature of all philosophical discourse, as it helps in striving to attain the indispensable basis of certainty. One can rightly claim that all thinking is about attaining truth or at least coming close to it—the truth is the element of all thinking, but the privilege of philosophical thinking is the truth attained in a radically critical manner. To be more precise, philosophical thinking is suffused with two opposing endeavours. One is oriented towards the highest truths—the ones about the meaning of life, the existence or non-existence of God, the beginning or the end of the universe, the nature of good and evil. The other is oriented towards the indispensable certainty, even at the cost of the knowledge about ultimate matters. Hence the painful awareness of the rupture between the highest hopes and the on-going possibility of the loss of all hope.

Our task here is to consider the role of metaphor in the language of philosophy in relation to its special function revealing the fundamental human matters. But the language of philosophy cannot be separated from philosophical thinking. If, anywhere in the language of philosophy, a symbol or a metaphor appears, and, what is more, this metaphor seems to synthetically summarise some important part of the philosophical discourse, then it means that the very thinking has become metaphorical. Can you remove from Plato the symbol of the people sitting in the cave and watching shadows of reality? Can you remove from the philosophy of knowledge developed by St Augustine the symbolism of “giving birth”? Or the hypothesis of an “evil genius” from Descartes’s thought? Much has been written about the role of symbol in thinking. Paul Ricoeur devoted several invaluable works to this issue. Still, every now and then one needs to return to the matter so as to bring back a few basic truths, even if one will not say anything really new.

Let us conjure up Plato’s cave: people chained to the rock, in front of them shadows of reality, and behind them the world of truth and the shining sun of good. Plato likens thinking to light which has suddenly rushed inside the cave and revealed to the people their real condition. Thanks to thinking, which is as if light, the world surrounding man acquires background. Out of the awareness of the contrast between the world and its background born are the first words of thinking. What do these words say? They say that something that should not be happing is happening. We should exist differently. Our existence is an appearance of existence. Who has plunged us into this? Why? What fault are we being punished for? Thinking opens up, in front of man and for man, an agathological horizon of being—a horizon of truth or falsehood, beauty or ugliness, good or evil. As it asks, thinking wants to know the truth: where does the boundary separating appearances from reliable manifestations run? If we find the boundary, a way leading to genuine good and genuine beauty will unfold in front of us. If we don’t, all may prove to be a mere appearance.

Let us consider the way thinking lives. Thinking seems to make a kind of twofold movement: one inwards and the other outwards. It is as if thinking withdraws from life, everyday chores and worries, as if it wanted to focus on itself, as if it was looking for some specially privileged vantage point which commands the best view of the world and the best spot for hearing the voices coming in from the world. Philosophical thinking is peculiar first and foremost because of where it comes from. Only in the second place is it peculiar because of what it says. Philosophers speak from such places in the world as no one else does—neither a poet, nor a preacher, nor a scholar specialising in positive sciences. A question arises: what places are these? But the things they say are also something special. Another question arises: what do they want to say? At any rate, it is something hidden from the profane, something supersensual, metaphysical, supernatural. Do they not object to the postulate of criticism then? Would it not be better if “whereof they cannot speak, thereof they would be silent”? …

A metaphor, a symbol are no accidental phenomena in radical thinking, but they are simply manifestations of its radicalism. Thinking is about opening up horizons of possibility for that which is given as existent. Each act of opening up a new horizon desires to be expressed through a metaphor. Thanks to this a “symbol can provoke thought.”

The metaphor of the cave provokes thought about the basic suffering of a thinking being—suffering of uncertainty. The same is suggested by the metaphor of giving birth. Moving this metaphor from the human plane to the divine plane reveals the specificity of the act of cognition as opposed to reflection and creation. Metaphorization turns out to be a switch to thinking in values. At this point, metaphorization can falsify the image of the place which engendered it. Cognition can forget about its duties to suffering. There is still a need to be on the alert. Last but not least, the final work of the “living metaphor”: taking the appearance of absolute existence away from that which is immediate. If a philosophical metaphor is possible, then a world entirely different from the one in which we live today is possible as well.

What kind of thinking then is able to do without metaphor?

The thinking the aim of and the reason for is absolute affirmation of the actual world. It is the kind of thinking for which realism becomes not only philosophy, but is also disease, and the principle of the strict explicitness of language—like a ban on going out issued to flu sufferers—is not so much a directive facilitating communication as abandonment of thinking over the sense hidden in the grand metaphors of the European philosophy.

AGATHOLOGY

J. Tischner, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie (Paris: Éditions du Dialogue, Société d’Éditions Internationales, 1990), pp. 53–58.

… As I encounter the other (another), I meet him within the horizon which in general enables the encounter, but at the same time is its work. The other, whom I encounter, and I are in the space in which something is better, something is worse, good or evil. The space is not the ordinary space of Euclidean geometry, but it is hierarchical space. ‘Good’ is called agathon in Greek. Logos denotes that which is reasonable, wise. Let us then say: an encounter is about opening up the agathological horizon of interhuman experience. The agathological horizon is a horizon within which all the manifestations of the other and of I are governed by a peculiar logos—the logos of good and evil, of that which is better and that which is worse, of an up and a down, victory and failure, salvation and damnation. What does this consist in? In an encounter I do not know it yet. I know, however, that when I engage in an encounter that kind of thing is always the issue.

Drama opens a possibility of tragedy. The essence of tragedy is a victory of evil over good. Pondering the agathological essence of tragedy, we can get closer to understanding the nature of evil. Out of the nature of evil—which is what Heidegger mentions¹—comes striving after self-annihilation. To annihilate evil is to mete out justice to it. But something else is happening in tragedy. A tragic coincidence is characterised by the fact that instead of perishing, evil prevails. For his act of mercy Prometheus receives a punishment. Trying to escape his destiny, King Oedipus falls victim to it. The just one is crucified between malefactors. The tragedy ends in an event in which good reveals its powerlessness in a feud with evil. With the phrase of the tragic we define the possibility of tragedy. Drama contains a germ of the tragic, for it opens the way to tragedy as its possibility. Whoever takes part—in whatever capacity—in drama, they come close to the possibility of tragedy; in some way they partake in the tragic. That is why the perspective of the tragic is an indispensable background to every encounter. This, however, does not mean that it is afforded to us in an obvious manner.

At this point a polemical remark is due to Max Scheler and his approach to tragedy. Scheler. First, Scheler is right to observe that: “All that can be called tragic is contained within the sphere of values and their relationships. In a universe devoid of values, such as that constructed by mechanical physics, there are no tragedies. Only where there is high and low, noble and common, is there anything like tragic events.”² Scheler’s remark acknowledges the crucial difference between horizons: within the horizon of things (the scene-related one) there is no possibility of tragedy; such a possibility appears only within the horizon of values—human values. Scheler writes: “The tragic therefore manifests itself where the forces destructive of a greater positive value are themselves involved in bearers of positive values, and is most purely and distinctly manifest where bearers of equally superior values appear to be ‘doomed’ to destroy and annihilate each other. Hence, the tragedies that are the most effective agents of the phenomenon of the tragic are the ones where not only every one ‘is right’, but where each one of the struggling persons and powers represents an equally lofty right, or appears to fulfil an equally lofty duty.”³ The phenomenon of the tragic seems to have two layers then: the first one is a clash of positive subjects of values, proponents of law and moral order: the second one is an intrigue of evil, which sets otherwise honest people or gods against one another and forces them to fight. Good beings confront each other as enemies and therein lies evil. But what is the thing that turns them against each other? Who? Fate? Blindness? A demon? The tragic thing is that Prometheus offers fire to people and gods need to punish him. Pilate knows that Jesus is just, but he needs to wash his hands. So before good becomes an opponent of another good, evil barges in between them and becomes the principal rule of tragedy.

Various origins of the tragic are possible, but all of them can be traced back to two basic ones: powerlessness and ignorance. The tragedy of Prometheus chained to a rock in the Caucasus is a tragedy of powerlessness—a tragedy of shackled freedom. For Prometheus his own situation is no mystery. He suffers in full light, or even in excessive light; he knows why and knows that there is no way out. Unlike king Oedipus. As it appears, the tragedy of Oedipus is ignorance. Oedipus has enough strength to escape his destiny, but since he is surrounded by ever-present illusions, eventually he falls victim to it. There may also be tragedies that result from a combination of the element of powerlessness with the one of ignorance. This may in turn give rise to the situation in which the main source of pain is knowledge. A sage may die of an excess of truth. Still, these kinds of the tragic and the like are secondary, for they are overbuilt on specific concepts of good, evil, human fate, man. The theory of an encounter does not require—at least for the time being—a more extensive discussion of these concepts.

The possibility of tragedy goes hand in hand with a possibility of a triumph. Drama, as it opens the former, opens the latter one as well. A triumph means a victory of good over that which is opposed to good. Through the idea of a triumph the nature of good reveals itself to us a bit more. Good is that which by nature strives to come into being. To let good be means to give justice to it. Good which has come into being in defiance of evil is heroic good. Hegel rightly observes the following: “The general background of a tragic action is provided in a tragedy, as it was in epic, by that world-situation which I have previously called (…) heroic.”⁴ The heroic triumph of good over evil may take various forms: it may be a triumph of power which reveals indestructibility of good, or a triumph of truth which proves the limitation of all illusions. A synthesis of the former and the latter would be the ideal of a triumph: good would turn out to be both indestructible and overt.

An encounter with the other is an encounter with that which is really outside me. The other is simply a transcendens. The other places me in a situation in which even my omitting him is a form of acknowledging that he is there. The presence of the other is a living awareness of the intuition of existence. But the existence that the other represents is not a neutral or pure existence, or perfection displaying essence. This existence is defined agathologically. In other words: it is existence problematised in its value with the irremovable perspective of tragedy. It is impossible to separate the experience of this existence from the experience of evil that threatens it, or from the misery that threatens others, or from the good that it needs to fight for and that it needs to demand from others, even if it does not know what the former and the latter are about. The existence of another is happening. However, in this case it is not time that is a fundamental reality here, but that towards which the existence of another is happening. As I encounter such existence in the other, I know that this existence is not the way it should be. “True life is absent.” But it is not only his existence that is such; such is my existence as well if I view it from the perspective of shared drama.

Prometheus suffers, chained to a rock and prey to a vulture, doomed to eternal agony without hope for death. The myth of Prometheus—as Paul Ricoeur writes—offers a way of understanding of every human existence. Why is human life such? What is this punishment for? What is the source of our fault? Oedipus runs away from his fate and yet falls victim to it. That is also a symbolic representation of human destiny. Why is that so? It was said of Judas: “It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” And what about us?

In Plato we find a symbolic description of the human condition as represented in the cave. Freedom and the capacity for reliable judgment of the world are here taken away from man. The Thomistic ontology proposes a theory of accidentality of all encountered being, whereby the very essence of being, while different from existence in a real manner, constitutes the reason for finitude, imperfection and adventitiousness of beings. Blaise Pascal developed thought about man being locked between two infinities: infinite minuteness and infinite magnitude; man is devoid of the capability to comprehend either of the two. All these conceptions are, to my mind, an indirect interpretation of that which is given to us in the experience of an encounter. They are a poetic and ontological interpretation of the basic human condition, which appears in the full light only in an encounter. The interpretations not only describe the condition, but they also try to elucidate it. They expose that which is, referring being to some measure. The measure of being is either complete freedom, or complete lucidity, or a pure act of existence, or infinity. But before one reaches for a measure, one needs to experience measurability. Measurability is given to us in an encounter. As we experience it, we ask: how is that possible? That, however, is not a question of curiosity, but of profound obligation.

As we find, owing to an encounter, that “true life is absent,” we become overwhelmed with amazement. It is no awe. Awe is joy arising at the sight of good, beauty, truth, which have proved to be at least a bit triumphant. Nor is it the opposite of awe—scandalisation at the sight of triumphant evil. He whom we encounter within the agathological horizon is neither triumphant good nor triumphant evil. He is one in whom good has been exposed to the action of evil. Hence amazement. Amazement gives rise to a question: how is that possible? How is it possible that Prometheus suffers on account of good, that Oedipus falls victim to fate while fleeing it, that Judas betrays, and the Just dies crucified? In a question like this, rebellion becomes interspersed with acceptance. We rebel against leaving good at the mercy of evil, while we accept good threatened with evil. A question springing out of such roots is concerned with the crux of the matter of existence: to exist—is that good or evil? Existence is a mysterious category in which good and evil can combine and intersperse. Is it then better to be or not to be? “The existence of a negative value is itself a negative value”—writes Scheler. Is existence at all capable of getting rid of this negation? Only an encounter is a source of the most profound metaphysical questions.

According to Lévinas, the right horizon for an encounter is an ethical horizon. “We name this calling into question of my spontaneity by the presence of the Other ethics. The strangeness of the Other, his irreducibility to the I, to my thoughts and my possessions, is precisely accomplished as a calling into question of my spontaneity, as ethics.”⁵ However, the concept of ethics is completely ambiguous. Most often, we view ethics as some praxis in man’s relation to another man—one or many. Ethics is both wisdom and art serving action, preparing reprimands and praise, a manner of being and dealing with people. In some cases it takes form of a system, in others—of an aphorism, a morality play, a confession. Meanwhile, the agathological horizon is more fundamental than all action plans. It is a horizon of light rather than strength. As I encounter the other, I do not know yet what I should and what I shouldn’t do; I do not know whether I should at all do anything, or whether anything can be done. I know one thing: the way things are is not the way they should be.

That which I have said actually coincides with Lévinas’s concept of desire. There were two aspects of Abraham’s desire: the discovery of the Promised Land was closely related to the discovery of the land of expulsion. The one could not be separated from the other.

Let us, however, try to make the distinction and follow it: an agathological horizon and an axiological perspective. The primary function of that which is agathological is to reveal and problematise. This can be likened to light and silence. “True life is absent.” Hence the amazement and the question of metaphysics: how is that possible? That which is agathological provokes thought. That which is axiological reveals directions of action. That which is agathological makes the very existence a problem. That which is axiological reveals ways of deliverance. That which is agathological throws man off his usual day-and-night rhythm and plunges him into a borderline situation in which freedom accepts or rejects itself, reason wants to or does not want to be reason, conscience disavows or avows itself. That which is axiological is the space in which freedom, reason and conscience operate. The dimensions of this space depend on man’s sense of power, and so they happen to be bigger or smaller. That which is agathological awakens the sense of power and powerlessness. Man is aware of the boundaries of humanity.

As we encounter the other, we find his face. What is a face? The answer is provided by Lévinas. By way of reference to the applied terminology, we can say: the other’s face does not emerge from within the axiological horizon, but from within the agathological one … .

THE FINAL WORD IN DRAMA

J. Tischner, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie (Paris: Éditions du Dialogue, Société d’Éditions Internationales, 1990), pp. 249–257.

In the philosophy of drama developed here we assume that evil belongs to the category of phenomena that are distinguished from other object phenomena by the fact that they can only possibly emerge between persons of drama. Evil presents itself to us as an enticing or frightening apparition summoned up by the presence of other persons next to us. It is as if a third someone—someone who, while with us, can talk to us. Is there anything else behind that apparition? This we do not decide. The adopted phenomenological research method does not allow that. Still, we do not regret the limitation. The adopted stance remains in harmony with the classical philosophy of evil whereby evil is a lack of being; for whatever is the phenomenon if not a lack of being passing itself off as being? Nor do we stand in contradiction to the Manichean concept of evil, where evil exists as an independent being. Perhaps that is really the manner of its existence, but we will make do with looking into phenomena themselves. Thus, we have adopted a neutral posture at the starting point, not choosing to be on either of the feuding sides.

A similar thing should be said about good. It, too, emerges as a phenomenon from the interhuman space. It speaks to us like a third someone, from within ourselves and yet somehow not from within ourselves, from within others and yet not from within them. Besides that, is it anything else? Is it an independent being? Or is it just an illusion of an independent being. This we do not decide. In the case of good we remain neutral too. We wish to study good by the way it is presented to us. About good that in no way is presented to us we know nothing. We do not have any experience of it, and therefore how can we understand it?

The biblical story of the fall of Adam and Eve remains the horizon of the philosophy of drama. It does not evade metaphors, for it knows that metaphorization is a part of the nature of thinking. That is why its philosophising is resolute “thinking from within the metaphor.” In the story of the fall the voice of good that sounds between Adam and Eve is the voice of God. The voice of evil is the voice of the tempter (in this case the snake). The third one (or perhaps the fourth one too) will appear between the two persons in the drama. Does the third one exist in a real way? This question has for ages been the bane of ontology, which believes that only that which exists in a real way can act. In his actions, man is given to both that which exists and that which does not. A possible demon plays the same role in the philosophy of drama as the demon existing in reality. A similar role was played—according to Kant—by God in classical ontology. Instead of asking: what exists? We asked: who and what do we listen to?

We are speaking about a voice here. It is so typical: the main metaphors which the Bible uses to describe the experience of good and evil (but not only the Bible) are associated with auditory sensations. Good and evil make their presence felt through voice. Unlike them, objects are presented to us through the senses of eyesight and touch. One should say: good cannot be seen, but it can be heard, and the same is true for evil: it cannot be seen, but it can be heard. Good and evil often come to us through prohibitions and orders, where the objective content is less important than the tone used to communicate them. Picking the fruit from the tree was something more than just removing some object, because it violated the prohibition. Refraining from work on a holy day is not just about leaving things in place, but about worshipping God on account of the fulfilment of a proper order. Neither does a fruit in a tree call for picking, nor do things call for not touching—the one who callsis someone third who has stepped in between us. Lévinas’s philosophy of the face, too, testifies to the precedence of speech in the experience of good. Contrary to what the literal understanding of the word might suggest, the face is not that which is visible, but that which is audible. The face says—“you shall not commit murder.” The speech of the face emerges from within the horizon of Good and arouses a desire for good in those who can hear it.

More often than not, in studies of the mystery of good and evil the question of the nature of good is examined in the first place, and only then comes the question of the nature of evil. In the present introduction to the philosophy of drama we took a different path: we began with evil so that we could gradually work our way through it and towards the understanding of good. This follows from the conviction that while good is closer to our hopes, evil is closer to our experiences. Philosophy that owns up to using the phenomenological method is, so to speak, from the start doomed to giving precedence to the study of evil over the study of good.

To conclude these investigations, let us try to capture that which is elementary in the speech of evil and good. Let us ask about the final word—the final word of evil and the final word of good uttered for the sake of man.

Damnation

We have said: evil leads to damnation. Its goal is to hear—“you are damned.” He who is damned is evil. Both he and his existence are evil. Scheler writes: “the existence of a negative value is itself a negative value.” The existence of an evil man is an evil existence. We know that evil speaks to man either as a temptation or as a threat. The ultimate goal of evil is to reduce a human being to such a condition in which the words “he is evil” become truth. He who is evil should be damned. There is nothing that might justify his existence. What does it mean to say that I am evil? We know that both the words can take on different meanings. The analyses conducted so far have drawn attention to a few possibilities. And here we go: I am evil, because I am ugly. Let us go further: I am evil, because I am a rebel. But also: I am evil, because I am a liar. And one more thing: I am evil, because I am a traitor. Ugliness, lie, rebelliousness and treacherousness are manifestations of my existential evil. But for me to say that I am evil because of ugliness, lie, rebelliousness and treacherousness, first the word I must take on a special meaning. First, the identification of me with a specific value, i.e. beauty, truthfulness, obedience, fidelity, which I lack and which I would like to have must take place. A man who, because of ugliness, comes to the conclusion that he is evil, has identified all his good with beauty, and that beauty is what he is lacking in and the same is true in other cases. Now that he can see that he is not what he considered himself to be, he despairs like someone damnable.

The identification of the I with a specific value—a pivotal value—is called a process of ‘egotic solidarization.’ The process characterised by the opposing direction is called ‘desolidarization.’¹ 

What then does the speech of evil strive after? It strives to trigger in the consciousness of a person of the drama a process of the constitution of axiological sense, the final outcome of which will be the identification of the I with evil. The beginning of the process is dialogue with evil—an evil that threatens or tempts.

In parallel with the speech of evil stands the speech of good—a dialogue with good. The speech of good results in the consciousness of the I being overcome by values that can emerge unscathed from the struggle with evil. Does it really matter that I am ugly if am truthful? And if I have been caught lying, it’s nothing, because I am obedient to my master. And if I am not obedient to my master, then I am loyal to my fellow being. And so in the struggle against evil, inspired by the speech of good, the I changes planes of the actual existence—it backs off from one to be true to itself on another one. And so it is never convinced that it is evil. For there will always be some good, some value, under the roof of which it will look for shelter.

All these transformations of the consciousness are an internal reflection of man’s external drama. The individual chapters of the drama leave behind, in the soul, ever-new layers of persons taking part therein. An external dramatic thread turns into an internal one. Interhuman good and evil become man’s good and evil—evil that destroys him and good that builds him.

Aesthetic damnation

In the above section we spoke about roaming around in the element of beauty. We paid attention to the positive side of the experience of beauty, taking account of the beauty of another man. A beautiful man inspires, transforms and justifies us—like some work of art. But the beauty that appears to us contains some germ of disdain. At any time, beauty can turn to the artist enraptured by it and say—“you don’t deserve me.” Such words sound like damnation. Beauty gives one to understand that only the beautiful can be part of its retinue. He who is not beautiful falls victim to disdain. He can admire but will not be admired.

Aesthetic damnation, which is supported by an experience of beauty, is essentially different from damnations which we can call “ethical-religious.” The voice of damnation does not come out of the interhuman space from someone third, but directly from the very work of art. It does the disdaining and damning. And that is exactly why it is not the voice that good and evil speak through. Here we come up against a significant difference between an aesthetic experience and an ethical-religious one. An aesthetic experience is an intrigue of two, while an ethical-religious experience requires someone third.

Anyone who has fallen victim to disdain on the part of a work of art—and to fall victim to disdain is to acknowledge that in fact one deserves the disdain—knows that he is ugly. His ugliness is of an existential character. This means he is nothing but ugly. This cannot be changed. You can cover existential ugliness, but you cannot change it. To change it would mean to commit suicide. Indeed, aesthetic damnation sometimes leads to suicide. It is, however, possible to dispute with aesthetic damnation. There are two possibilities: either give the lie to damnation and demonstrate that it is wrong, or change the pivotal value of the egotic solidarization. In the latter case, beauty ceases to be an integral element of the I. Its place is taken by another value. 

By changing the pivot of egotic solidarization, man says: so what I am not beautiful if I am… say, hard-working. Beauty is no longer something that one is, and becomes something that one has. That which one has can be lost without ceasing to be what one is. Thus, aesthetic damnation thrusts at the void. It does not arouse despair, but a shrug of the shoulders at the most.

Political damnation

Absolute power accuses and damns with words encapsulating its justification—“you are a rebel.” Absolute power views man as a subject through the prism of a never fully suppressed rebellion. Man is an uncontrollable anarchist. The mode of operation of his will is opposition. Liberated from the control of power, man immediately sets fire to the world. Every time he is called upon to obey, he responds with recalcitrance. That is why he needs power that he does not want. To control man, power must resort to fear or subterfuge. Fear and subterfuge become interwoven into one in the formula of accusation and damnation—“you are a rebel.”

In some respect political damnation becomes like aesthetic damnation. Here, the third one is not necessary either. The more absolute power is, the more autonomy it shows in damnation. Truly absolute power always speaks in its own name. It does not allow any authority above itself—authority that a subject might appeal to. Relatively absolute power allows such authority, or even itself strives to establish it. It is only then that between it and the subject the third one enters—God, the Law of History, Progress, Humanity. The negative side of the third one is then the fourth one—a demon, incomprehension of the moment in history, benightedness, inhumanity.

And so: you are a rebel, because you don’t listen to God, but to a demon, because you don’t understand the precepts of History, because you do not keep abreast of the Progress but move backwards, because you do not act in the interests of Humanity. By making itself a representative of these and suchlike values, power ceases to be pure absolute power. This, however, does not mean that it is limited in its potency. For its own purposes, it tries to exploit the third ones who appear in the interhuman space.

And so: I am a rebel. If I agree to damnation, I must go into exile. But exile won’t change my essence. In exile I will be a rebel too. I will be better off dying then. Is this necessary? Would I not be able to change? No, that’s impossible. After all I am a rebel. If only my rebellion were just an occurrence, everything could be fixed. But I am a rebel. Given the situation, the only solution is for me not to exist at all.

To save my life, I need to deny the accusation. My denial sounds: I am not. I am not a rebel, because I am obedient to someone else and something else. This obedience manifests itself through my fidelity. I am faithful—that is the answer and hope.

Denying the accusation involves opening up to someone third, someone or something I am faithful to when I rebel against power. Power wanted to take advantage of that and turn it against me, but now I am taking advantage of it and turning it against the power. The third one: perhaps God, perhaps a fellow being, perhaps own conscience. Each one of these is a specific embodiment of the idea of good and evil. Thus, between the subject and power a wide field of ethics, law, morality, tradition and religion begins to stretch. There is no longer room for any absolute order issued by the absolute power, nor for absolute obedience to the power. Nor is there room for wilfulness, anarchy or terror of unbridled individuality. Rule and submission begin to be dependent on that which happens between people.

Religious damnation

“Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire”—so sounds the judgement for the damned. The tragedy of this judgement follows from the fact it is delivered by God—the Everlasting Heart. If there was someone else instead of God, you might challenge the judgement, but since it’s God, you cannot. The Absolute Truth cannot be wrong. The Absolute Good is not unjust. The Eternal Heart is not cruel. Still, the judgement is what it is.

The Incomprehensible Wisdom may suffer because of the judgement, but can it change it?

I am damned. Why? Because I am evil. What does that mean? Let us first look at the road that led to the damnation. Then let us try to grasp the state of damnation.

The beginning of the road to damnation is betrayal. To put is simply: I was chosen by Good and the act of this choice aroused in me good will to choose the one who chose me. I made the choice. But a trying time came. I betrayed. The one who chose me repeated his act of choice. And then rebellion surged up in me. The repeated act of choice did not arouse in me good will to choose the Good that had chosen me. It aroused in me something opposing—will to objection, ill will. Thus I became evil. Is there any hope for me? If there is, then first and foremost it is in me. I alone can become good. But I have become evil. I have shut myself in this anger. I have hardened. I can be annihilated, but I cannot be changed without my involvement. The damnation that comes from God is a statement about who I am.

The damnation is a consequence of a particular dialogic situation which arises when the call of Good does not awake in man a response in the form of a choice of good, but results in a more resolute choice of evil. It looks like a road leading to a downfall: the higher the good that is calling, the greater doggedness and anger it generates. Little anger is enough to deny little good. It takes all anger to reject the Eternal Heart.

Looking down the perspective of the road to damnation, we can see the outlines of the state of damnation. The state resembles despair that Kierkegaard describes as “sickness unto death.” The state of despair is a state of choice. It does not overcome man without his consent. Man does not, however, choose despair as despair. Despair arrives when man chooses evil, and he does that against Good that has chosen him. By choosing ever greater evil against ever greater Good, man chooses his own curse. Living his own curse, man agrees to be in despair—despair becomes his breath. This should bring him to death. But death is impossible. You cannot kill a spirit. The damned exists, but his is a cursed existence—existence that manifests itself by cursing existence. The cursed curse. Those who curse become cursed. Thus emerges a closed circle of evil, which cannot be penetrated by the voice of the Eternal Heart.

Justification

The road to salvation leads in the opposite direction to that of the road to damnation. The road to salvation is a road of ever-renewed faithfulness to Good, which keeps calling. Incarnated in me, thanks to my choice, good is put to the test of a situation. However, man is a weak being, and so each trial ends in a defeat of greater or lesser magnitude. Even victories are some kind of defeats. After the defeat a new call resounds and so the choice is made anew. Step by step, through ups and downs, faithfulness is born—absolute faithfulness, that is faithfulness regardless of circumstances. It opens the road to salvation. Salvation comes to be expressed in the words “Come, you who are blessed.”

The state of salvation can be thought of as a state of justification which is opposed to the state of damnation. Damnation means despair. The opposite of despair is happiness. If despair is about “sickness unto death,” then happiness is something like “robustness unto life.” Man is all healthy—sound is his soul, body, reason and will, sound are his senses and feelings. Health keeps bringing and breeding life. Such life is a symptom of blessing. Happiness is a manifestation of ever-increasing life.

But happiness is merely an approximation of the state of salvation. If one wants to proceed further from this approximation, one needs to say: the state of blessed happiness is a state of choice. It does not overwhelm man without the consent of his will. However, in this choice it is not happiness that is the crux of the choice. The crux of the choice is good. Happiness arrives when man chooses Good over evil that pulls him under. By choosing Good that offers itself to him, man becomes happy. The greater the good he chooses, the more robust his life. As he keeps choosing life with regard to good, man rises up towards something that is timeless. He believes that it is the Eternal Heart itself that is drawing him closer. Thus man brings his fragile fate under the roof of Good that blesses him.

At the beginning of the drama a question arises: who are you? At the end, there are two opposing possibilities: cursed or blessed. Man’s drama unfolds between these possibilities. What do they mean? We do not exactly know. The ignorance, however, does not prevent us from living between them, think according to them, judge ourselves and others according to them. If one day they disappeared out of sight and hearing, we would be left standing helpless on the stage of the world, like words that have forgotten the rules that turn them into the speech of grammar.

THE ONTOLOGY AND AGATHOLOGY OF MAN

J. Tischner, Spór o istnienie człowieka (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1998), pp. 274–290.

An attempt at transferring the ontological argument from the philosophy of God to the very heart of the philosophy of man can be found in Jean-Paul Sartre. The introduction to L’être et le néant contains a short chapter entitled “The Ontological Proof.” There we can find a succinct summary of the previous intuitions in which the author tries to reveal a special relation between the consciousness of being and the being of consciousness. The passage reads as follows: “the phenomenon of being is ‘ontological’ in the sense that we speak of the ontological proof of St Anselm and Descartes. It is an appeal to being; it requires, as a phenomenon, a foundation that is transphenomenal. The phenomenon of being requires the transphenomenality of being.”¹ The text further reads: “Consciousness is consciousness of something. This means that transcendence is the constitutive structure of consciousness; that is, that consciousness is born supported by a being which is not itself. This is what we call the ontological proof.”²

Jean-Paul Sartre wishes to show the specificity of “human being”—being-for-itself—as opposed to being-in-itself of an object or thing. The characteristic feature of man is that in him “existence” precedes “essence.” We realise who we are through the awareness of that which we encounter in the world and as transcendent to consciousness. Consciousness of that which is transcendent is of a “positional” (intentional, objective) character. Self-consciousness, attained as if on the margin of the consciousness of a transcendent object is of a “non-positional,” that is “pre-objective” character. Both the former and the latter kinds of consciousness are “immersed in being.” This is because “every conscious existence exists as consciousness of existing.”³ Sartre “peeps in on” the moment when positionality moves. Self-consciousness owes the consciousness of its existence to the consciousness of the existence of the object at which it is directed. The subject of cognition knows that it exists through the consciousness of the existence of the object that it gets to know. Sartre writes: self-consciousness “is born.” That is apt wording. Consciousness of the object “fertilizes” the consciousness of the subject. It is “born” as that which was before, and only now has come to “see the light of day.”

What is the “ontologicality” of this argument about? As in the ontological proof, from thinking of a specific object follows a conclusion about its existence, so in Sartre intentional recognition of an objective being gives birth to consciousness of existence in the recognising subject. And yet, analogy is not identity. The difference can be pointed out with the phrase “gives birth” introduced in place of the word “results.” This phrase gives rise to new problems. As we address them, we need to leave the field of ontology. All of Sartre’s analysis falls within ontology. Sartre employs two basic concepts: essence and existence. He asks: which one comes first? The possibility of the solution is, however, beforehand limited by the applied conceptual framework. Existence precedes essence or essence precedes existence. Does such an alternative, as the only one, not impoverish the dramatic wealth of consciousness? One glance is enough to see that it apparently does. In order to reveal drama, one needs to rise “above” ontology.

Let us first ask: what does it mean to “give birth”? The metaphor of giving birth serves to describe the phenomena that do not fall into the categories of causality. Giving birth is not any kind of causality. It is a mother who gives birth, but she is neither an efficient cause, nor a final cause, nor a formal cause, nor a material cause of a born baby. What is she then? A mother. The same goes for the father. The father is not any “cause” either, but a father. The birth is delivered by a midwife. Her assistance does not fall into the categories of cause and effect either. Giving birth is not “ontological,” even though the fruit of the labour exists and is a being. In birth that which is covert becomes overt. Giving birth is about exposing.

Exposing has “ontological” consequences. As a consequence of birth, we can say: we have a baby. But also: I am a mother, I am a father. The word “have” points to some good, and “am” constitutes a definition of being. The agathological experience has become a foundation for positional consciousness that constitutes the meaning of being.

The act of giving birth perfectly serves the purpose of describing the mystery of light. It, too, exposes that which existed before. On the other hand, but for light that which existed before would in a sense not exist. Thanks to light the world “is born” to man. Man can say: “this exists, that exists, it is there, it is here,” etc. “The world” is that which always appears in the field of light. Using Husserl’s terminology, one can say: the world is that whose meaning has been “constituted.” “Constitution” (“constitutive genesis”) is a concept that points to “giving birth to light-sense.” Meaning is constituted wherever something is possible. Meaning as a delineation of the field of possibility precedes all factuality. Let us pose a key question: what is the field of possibility for man? In other words: on what conditions can a “man be born” in man?

Let us first take a closer look at the character of the space which becomes the proper “breeding space” for man—his natural matrix—mothering “soil” of humanity. The thing is about “internal space of consciousness.” The category of space aligns objects “one-next-to-another.” The internal space produces a similar effect. Thanks to it, experiences too become aligned “one-next-to-another.” What does that mean more precisely? Are all experiences aligned like this? It is well known that Kant applied the category of space solely to external sensory data, keeping only the category of time for the internal sense.

As we are speaking about “internal space,” an explanation as to the kind of “space” in question is due. The internal space is not a “flat” space, but it has its “surface and depth.” Among those who wrote about it were, inter alia, Henri Bergson and Max Scheler. Bergson wrote about a “deep subject” and a “superficial subject”—about free acts that emerge from the “depth of consciousness” and through the “shell of the superficial subject” come “outside” in unpredictable deeds. Scheler wrote about a way to experience the greatest values: the greater a value, the “deeper” the way to experience it. “Depth” means that the internal self-consciousness has as if three “dimensions,” thanks to which some experiences reveal themselves to us as “closer,” others as “further,” yet others as more or less important. The pain in an injured hand feels “further” than the pain of longing for a beloved man, and is somehow less important. The despair that “bites into man” is more “dangerous” than a toothache, even though the suffering that it causes might not be felt to be as intense as the ache. There is some paradox about the internal space of consciousness. On the one hand, “everything has its own place in it,” but on the other hand—“everything may leave its place,” and take a “strange place.” That is what happens in the case of internal hypocrisy. In a case like this, one experience “plays the role of another,” one pushes out the other, knocks it below the threshold of consciousness, covers it or changes its meaning. A similar thing can be said of the “struggle” between experiences—the struggle between evil and good thoughts, between love and hate, hope and despair; it looks as if experiences were “struggling with each other” for a place in consciousness. The paradox of the internal space is such that to some extent right are those who—like Bergson himself—warn of too literal understanding of the internal space of consciousness, as well as those who—like the Freudian school—have rather no objections in this respect. When both sides are equally right, one needs to ask about the proper meaning of the internal space of consciousness. What is the rule of changing “places” by experiences in this space? What are the mechanics of change?

The internal space of consciousness has agathological meaning and becomes arranged in accordance with the principle of importance. This above all means that it is sensitive to the possibility of evil. To it, the possibility of evil means awareness of the possibility of evil. This entails awareness of the possibility of a fall, guilt, despair. Awareness of the possibility is not of an objective character: the point here is not that such an “object” as despair is at all possible, but that despair “presents itself.” It is not there yet, but in a way it is already there: it is the “dark power” that hope keeps overcoming. In this conflict, hope reveals itself as a “carrier of good.” Sensitivity to evil and good means that the internal space of consciousness is of an agathological character. Its logic is a “logic of importance.” Importance means a possibility of giving preference to some experiences over others. One might say: everything that presents itself in the internal space of consciousness bears the stamp of preferentiality. In itself and regardless of the references based on reflection, it “struggles for the better” against other “neighbouring” experiences. Evil thoughts want to be “given preference” over good ones, hate wants to “dominate” love, despair wants to push hope “off the cliff.” What is the principle governing preferentiality? It is some kind of life. The Holy Scripture reads: “Man shall not live on bread alone.” Man does not only “live through something,” but above all man “lives the thing that he lives through.” Man “lives good thoughts,” “lives hope,” “lives love.” And what about man’s humanity?

Before we address this question, let us say a few words about the “moment of positionality” in Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre conducts analyses of the acts of consciousness presented by Husserl. The positional moment—also called a thetic moment by Husserl—characterises only intentional acts of consciousness, that is acts directed at the object. The moment means recognition of a relevant object in existence. In Husserl the source of recognition lies in transcendental consciousness that exists “absolutely.” As the “absolute” source of light, this consciousness “recognises” and as it were “owns up to” the “brilliance” that the object “shines with.” In Sartre the focal point shifts to the object. It is above all the object that “shines.” Thanks to positionality the “shine” of the object shifts to the subject which takes on an “existential” character. The subject finds itself in “being” which “already is and is given.” However original and interesting Sartre’s thought might be, it only arises from a change in the arrangement of the pawns on the same chessboard. By introducing the idea of agathological space, we have made a radical change to the chessboard and the pawns. We have entered a different drama. In this drama the positional moment has been “subjected” to the moment of importance. It has shown its other side. That which is, is inasmuch as it is important. The conception of realism, which promises to transfer consciousness to the field of that which “really is” has meaning inasmuch as earlier on it already became important that there is something. But why did it become important?—realism does not know that.

We have said: the internal space of consciousness has agathological meaning. Agathicity defines its structure, which is not only a “one-next-to-another” structure or a “one-overlaps-another” one, but also a “one-over-under-another” structure. The internal space is hierarchical. However, this does not mean that the boundaries of the “places” are clearly delineated. Kant had a number of reasons to stick with the same category of time. Certainly, time creates more distinct divisions in this sphere. But they, too, collapse at a certain level. In the “depth” of consciousness there is no time anymore, and yet the hierarchy of importance remains.

The agathological space of consciousness is a condition for the possibility of man’s humanity—his being himself as man. We treat these two terms—“humanity” and “being yourself”—as equivalent. This is because a “man’s death” means “death of his being himself”; “death of being oneself” also means “death of humanity.” Of course, equivalence does not mean synonymy. We will return to the subject of meaning in some other place.

Let us return to the metaphor of birth. Being oneself—humanity—is that which is “born.” And born is that which was earlier. However, it was as if it wasn’t there. To be born means: “come out to light” and “see light.” Birth requires “fertilisation.” However, “fertilisation” is not the “cause” of birth, and birth is not the “effect” of fertilisation. As for being yourself and humanity, it’s not that being yourself is not born on its own, but that you cannot be yourself if you don’t want it. The paradox of man lies in that on the one hand he “has already been born” (was “born”), but on the other hand—he “gives birth to himself.” Given the previous analyses, we know: he “gives birth to himself” in the agathological space and thanks to it. It is his mothering space, his matrix.

Let us try to elaborate on our description by referring to Søren Kierkegaard.

Being yourself is a fruit of the negation of that which manifests itself as negation—a fruit of the negation of despair. To be yourself, you need to pass the test of despair. He who chooses himself in a situation posing a threat of despair becomes himself. Kierkegaard writes: “This has struck me particularly in considering certain of the philosophers of Germany. Their thought is tranquilized, the objective logical thought is brought to rest in its corresponding objectivity, and yet they are in despair, even though they find distraction in objective thinking; for a man can find distraction in many ways, and there is hardly any anaesthetic so powerful as abstract thinking, because here it is a question of behaving as objectively as possible. Doubt and despair therefore belong in entirely different spheres, different sides of the soul are set in motion. Yet with this I am by no means satisfied, for doubt and despair would then be coordinate, and such is not the case. Despair is a far deeper and more complete expression, its movement much more comprehensive than that of doubt. Despair is precisely an expression for the whole personality, doubt only an expression for thought. The presumptive objectivity of doubt, whereof it is so proud, is precisely an expression for its incompleteness and imperfection. Doubt therefore is related to difference, despair to the absolute.”⁴

Despair is negation—radical negation. The edge of negation reaches to that which is absolute. It is not then only about the negation of being. If this was only about it, our drama would keep proceeding on the stage of certainty and would concern the dramatic tension between the positional moments of the acts of consciousness. The drama of despair concerns that which justifies or denies justification to being. That is why despair may be “sickness unto death”—a desire for death which cannot come. “When death is the greatest danger, we hope for life; but when we learn to know the even greater danger, we hope for death. When the danger is so great that death becomes the hope, then despair is the hopelessness of not even being able to die.”⁵

It would be a gross mistake if we wanted to classify despair under the category of “feelings,” “experiences,” or “acts” of consciousness. This, however, does not mean that despair does not manifest itself through the medium of “feelingness,” “experientiality,” or “actness.” Despair runs deeper, reaches down to the very “bottom” of a person. What does it tell the person? What does it want to convince the person of? It convinces him of his “being evil.” I do not think it possible to understand despair without delving into the notion of evil. All the defences that a person builds up against despair are in fact defences against evil. The following must be stated: the essence of the drama is not about despair, but about evil. Despair is but a reflection of evil which manifests itself and which seizes a person for itself. The language of religion speaks about sin in this case. Sin has two aspects: despair and damnation. Sin damns. It damns him thanks to whom it has arisen among people. It damns absolutely. This means: no circumstances can justify the sinner—he “is evil.” Outside the sinner evil is merely a “phenomenon” of evil. In the sinner it becomes “substance.” A lie becomes a liar; murder becomes a murderer; betrayal becomes a traitor. The sinner’s responsibility is the responsibility for the “substantialisation” of evil.

Is it possible to be reborn? The saying reads: “overcome evil with good.” But are there such conditions of possibility? Is there a matrix for such a perspective? Kierkegaard’s key text is extremely vague. And yet, it is of fundamental importance. Vagueness, too, has its meaning: it serves to define the perspective. Kierkegaard writes: “I have only one answer: despair.” Further on he adds: “One cannot despair at all without willing it, but to despair truly one must truly will it, but when one truly wills it one is truly beyond despair; when one has willed despair one has truly chosen that which despair chooses, i.e., oneself in one’s eternal validity. The personality is tranquilized only in despair, not by necessity, for I never despair by necessity, but by freedom, and only thereby does one win the absolute.”⁶ But what does it mean to “will despair”? Does it mean the same as not to will despair? Can one will and not will at the same time? And if you will despair and choose it, can you then shake it off? Does the very choice of “one’s eternal validity” overcome the negation of the validity of self by despair?

Kierkegaard goes on to write: “So, then, in choosing absolutely I choose despair, and in despair I choose the absolute, for I myself am the absolute, I posit the absolute and I myself am the absolute; but in complete identity with this I can say that I choose the absolute which chooses me, that I posit the absolute which posits me; for if I do not remember that this second expression is equally absolute, my category of choice is false, for the category is precisely the identity of both propositions. That which I choose I do not posit, for in case this were not [already] posited, I could not choose it, and yet if I do not posit by the fact that I chose it, then I did not choose it. It exists, for in case it were not in existence I could not choose it; it does not exist, for it only comes into being by the fact that I choose it, otherwise my choice would be an illusion.”⁷ Does this not bring to mind the ontological proof? Does this not mean “giving birth to yourself” out of the “nothingness of yourself”?

Further on we read: “But what is it I choose? Is it this thing or that? No, for I choose absolutely, and the absoluteness of my choice is expressed precisely by the fact that I have not chosen to choose this or that. I choose the absolute. And what is the absolute? It is I myself in my eternal validity.” But that is not the end of the question. There is one more and most fundamental question: “But what, then, is this self of mine? If at the first instant I were to give the first expression for this, my answer is: It is the most abstract of all things, and yet at the same time it is the most concrete—it is freedom. … This self which he then chooses is infinitely concrete, for it is in fact himself, and yet it is absolutely distinct from his former self, for he has chosen it absolutely. This self did not exist previously, for it came into existence by means of the choice, and yet it did exist, for it was in fact himself.”⁸

A question arises: does Kierkegaard not attribute too much power to freedom? And given this, does he not pass from the figurativeness of giving birth to the figurativeness of creating? Is the self still “born” or “created” by freedom? Is it itself freedom? Or perhaps Kierkegaard omits some important link in the lineage of the self?

Before I address these questions, I want to turn my attention to the analogy between Kierkegaard’s and Hegel’s approaches to freedom. Despite the dispute with Hegel, Kierkegaard seems to owe him as far as the issue of freedom is concerned. Maybe Hegel’s words, which have already been quoted here, will shed some light on the “creative” moments of freedom: “As the essence of Matter is Gravity, so, on the other hand, we may affirm that the substance, the essence of Spirit is Freedom. All will readily assent to the doctrine that Spirit, among other properties, is also endowed with Freedom; but philosophy teaches that all the qualities of Spirit exist only through Freedom; that all are but means for attaining Freedom; that all seek and produce this and this alone. It is a result of speculative Philosophy, that Freedom is the sole truth of Spirit. … Now this is Freedom, exactly. For if I am dependent, my being is referred to something else which I am not; I cannot exist independently of something external. I am free, on the contrary, when my existence depends upon myself. This self-contained existence of Spirit is none other than self-consciousness—consciousness of one’s own being. Two things must be distinguished in consciousness; first, the fact that I know; secondly, what I know. In self-consciousness these are merged in one; for Spirit knows itself. It involves an appreciation of its own nature, as also an energy enabling it to realise itself; to make itself actually that which it is potentially.”⁹

To be free means to be dependent upon oneself. The way to do it is to become independent. He who is dependent is not free. In order to become independent, one needs to “create” oneself. But that is special “creating”—it consists in “making oneself actually that which one is potentially.” Therefore, in the end man is independent, but he does not know about it. This makes him dependent. It is only the knowledge of independence that makes one truly independent. In Kierkegaard the accent is put on choice. By choosing despair, we choose ourselves. The very choice of despair is “giving despair the slip,” “becoming independent” of it and rising above it.

Fair enough. But what kind of “becoming independent” is meant here? Does it exclude freedom viewed as “understanding necessity”? As I choose despair, I can be “my despairing self,” and as an authentic, despairing Self I can become a being-against-self. At any rate, the drama turns against me. We know that neither Hegel nor Kierkegaard allowed such a possibility. Why? What held them back? Were they explicit about that?

To expose the “missing link” let us refer to other thinking—thinking which more clearly addresses good. Let us consider texts by Meister Eckhart. But in order to present them in a proper light, let us try to capture the problem of the lineage of Self from a somewhat different angle. Kierkegaard says: despair. What is the opposite of despair? It is hope. We should then ask: how is hope possible in despairing consciousness?

First and foremost, it seems impossible. That is because the tragedy of despair consists in despair making hope impossible. If hope was possible, there would be no despair. Some say: “there is no hope for you.” Somewhere out there, maybe for someone else there is hope, but for you there is no hope. Dante’s Inferno begins in such a way. Why is there no hope for those in Dante’s inferno? Two conjectures can be put forth: they are unworthy of hope, or they are too proud to take anything from the outside. In the former case, the gift of hope would be contrary to the order of values; in the latter case, the gift of hope would run up against the resistance of the completely closed consciousness. Which direction does Kierkegaard’s solution head? What do his choice of hope and the choice made therein of the self as the absolute value mean? The answer is not clear. Kierkegaard—taking into consideration only the quoted texts—does not, however, rule out being yourself as despairing humanity. To be yourself here means: to carry in yourself the misery of despair and see your absolute value therein. But is this choice not a choice of a new addiction? Is it not a lapse into fiendishness? If it was like that, that would mean that hope is all the more impossible.

And yet, that which is impossible happens. Hope prevails over despair. The triumph of hope over despair is an integral part of the ontological argument, thanks to which out of the idea of being yourself born is being yourself. In order to cast a little light into the chasm of this impossibility, let us refer to Meister Eckhart’s texts. They all treat of good. They all assume that bonum est diffusivum sui, and that it must be accepted by man freely, as only evil uses violence.

What does it mean that bonum est diffusivum sui? It means that the causality of good does not identify with the causality of being: it does not care about proportions, it does not reckon with the sufficient condition, it does not exhaust its strengths in action. When being acts, its effect must be proportionate to the cause. When good acts, let no one try to measure proportions. When being acts, it acts according to the sufficient reason. When good acts, the very possibility of acting is a sufficient reason. When being acts, after some time it feels “tired” and “exhausted” by acting. When good acts, no “good deed” of it exhausts it, but it deepens it and “imparts strength.” Being likes to “rest,” but good “knows no rest.”

And one more characteristic feature: when being acts, it destroys other beings or moves them from place to place. When good acts, it spares other goods. Hence follows respect for freedom. Freedom itself is man’s good. It defines his self-containment. If good in action annihilated freedom, it would be evil in action.

Good works like grace. The idea of grace serves to explain the possibility of that which is impossible—moving from despair to hope. It is not to be passed over in analyses of the human drama. If we omit it, we will be left with the notion of fate only.

It is significant that none of the grand descriptions of the human consciousness—from St Augustine to Hegel and Husserl—cannot do without the idea of that which is “absolute.” The idea takes on various meanings and has a rich history. Without going into detail, one thing is noteworthy: the idea of consciousness is particularly linked with the idea of good. There is something natural about the formula of “absolute good.” Similarly, there is something natural in the formula of “absolute consciousness.” And so when we come across the adjective “absolute” in the aforementioned authors, heedless of the risk of mistake, we think: consciousness of good. Incurring no risk, we can, however, think about consciousness and good as we read Meister Eckhart. The additional thing being that it is loving God that is here “absolute Good” and “absolute consciousness.” With Eckhart we face a new dramatic perspective—the drama with God. One might ask: what does God know about “man’s death”? Does God—That which is absolute—let man “die”?

That which is particularly striking about Meister Eckhart’s texts is the courage to speak about God. In them we read, among others, the following: “Wherever a man in obedience goes out of his own and gives up what is his, in the same moment God must go in there, for when a man wants nothing for himself, God must want it equally as if for Himself. So in all things that I do not want for myself, God wants for me.”¹⁰ Meister Eckhart has no doubts about it: God “must.” Even sin does not stand in the way: “Indeed, a man truly established in God’s will should not wish that the sin into which he had fallen had never been: not in the sense that it was against God, but because thereby you are bound to greater love and thus made lowly and humble—even though it was against God. But you should safely trust God not to have permitted this unless He wanted to turn it to your profit. But when a man stands right above sin and turns completely away, then our faithful God acts as if that man had never fallen into sin, and will not let him suffer for a moment for all his sins.”¹¹

Where does Eckhart’s certitude come from? From the intuition of good. The intuition of good exposes its internal drama tension. Good is a desire for even greater good. Every test that good is faced with, makes it deeper and makes it all the more good. Let us repeat that: every test, including a test of sin and a test of evil. In an encounter with evil, good becomes consciousness of good, and consciousness of good is nothing else but a desire for being “all the more good.”

Eckhart makes man the centre of the “dialectic” of good. We are “outside being and non-being,” inside the “agathological drama”—the drama out of which “being is to be born.” In this drama evil has its place. It is somewhere on the sidelines. It has its meaning too, but without its involvement the drama would keep unfolding anyway.

Let us once again return to Meister Eckhart’s well-known text: “Goodness is not created nor made nor begotten, its is procreative and begets the good; and the good man, in as far as he is good, is unmade and uncreated, and yet the begotten child and son of goodness.”¹² “Begetting” is conditioned by “fertilisation.” The “soul” should “let itself be fertilised.” This means “opening” and “passivity.” Eckhart’s language calls this: “obedience.” A kind of “not my will, but Yours be done.” At this point we come across the difference in relation to Kierkegaard. Where Kierkegaard talks about “choosing yourself,” Meister Eckhart talks about “renouncing yourself.” Is this difference a contradiction? Not necessarily. Opening is a choice too. “Not my will, but Yours be done” is a choice. The problem that remains is whether the choice means—as Kierkegaard claims—“choosing your infinite value.” It is more like a choice of a “risk,” “losing yourself” with no certainty of “recovering yourself.” A “risk” like this and a “loss of yourself” like this are sacrifice.

According to Meister Eckhart, this sacrifice must not left be unanswered. For this sacrifice is good that challenges. The highest, pure and absolute good cannot remain indifferent to such a challenge.

On the other hand, it must be admitted that something converse is true too. He who “fertilises” also wishes to be “fertilised.” His risk is primary. His sacrifice precedes man’s sacrifice. The “challenging one” is himself a “challenged one.” The father begets the son, and the son allows fatherhood to become realised.

It is significant that the dramatic tension of the challenges and responses to them is not a dramatic tension of compulsion, but freedom. Freedom is embedded in the possibility of refusal. After all, it is of little consequence if “fertilisation” does not take place. Despair will linger on. But with despair you can go on living and being yourself. However, if there has been no refusal, and the “entry” into the drama of good has been effected, then one more thing is discovered: along with the experience of freedom comes the experience of grace. He who chooses despair chooses the logic of fate. He who chooses challenge, chooses grace—grace of hope.

The idea of grace explains the possibility of a leap from despair to hope. I have said that in some respect such a leap is not possible. A man who has sunk into despair cannot “by his unaided efforts” get out of the state of despair. If he had enough strength, probably he would not have lapsed into despair. Coming out towards hope is effected through the Other. The very risk of the challenge is the germ of hope. Hope reaches its height when it realises that there is a trustee of hope. Here is the One I entrust my hope to. And conversely: here am I who accepts His hope. Mutual trusteeship of hope serves to overcome the “death of man.”

FREEDOM AS A MODE OF EXISTENCE OF GOOD

J. Tischner, Spór o istnienie człowieka (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1998), pp. 291–304.

The descriptions of the order of evil and good which have been presented would not have been possible without the concept of freedom. The time has come to explore its sense in greater depth. First and foremost, the meaning which has become almost commonplace—the ontological meaning—should be excluded. Freedom cannot be interpreted from the perspective of the categories serving to describe “being as being,” e.g. the categories of power, powerlessness, cause, effect, being relatively or absolutely isolated, and last but not least “nothingness.” Adopting a proposition whereby freedom is a concept described with the aid of ontological categories sooner or later leads to a rejection of the idea of freedom. We come closer to the truth when we describe freedom with the aid of the category of gnoseology as a special kind of “self-knowledge” resulting from specific cognition and understanding of reality. But then again we lose the crucial meaning of freedom, narrowing it down to almost nothing but an “act of reason.” Freedom recovers its meaning only when it is approached “outside being and non-being” as a mode of existence of good; man is free, because in him “good has its being.”

Let us linger for a moment over the “ontology of freedom.” As we inquire into freedom through the categories of “being as being,” we are faced with a limited range of possible solutions. After all, we act most sensibly by recognising that freedom is some “power” capable of opposing other powers and other beings. However, all the concern for freedom then becomes “concern for power”—a desire for “will to power.” It was not only Nietzsche who approached freedom like this, but also Descartes, who wrote: “This is owing to the fact that willing is merely a matter of being able to do or not do the same thing, that is, of being able to affirm or deny, to pursue or to shun; or better still, the will consists solely in the fact that when something is proposed to us by our intellect either to affirm or deny, to pursue or to shun, we are moved in such a way that we sense that we are determined to it by no external force.”¹ The adduced description shows some hesitation: “being able to do or not do the same thing… to affirm or deny.” Any potential doubts are quashed by the words: “we are determined to it by no external force.” And so we remain on the plane of a struggle of forces. What conclusion follows from this? As we define freedom through force, which is what Descartes proposes, we cannot but acknowledge that the freest being is the most “forceful” being. Such a being can have influence on other beings without yielding to their influence. Its outward causality would then be a significant manifestation of freedom. Faced with such a being, what would finite beings, which are not as “forceful” as it, have to say? Their freedom would come down to “understanding necessity.” Recognising the direction of the action of the “power,” which “treads the world,” and “joining in” the direction of its action, a finite being—man—might be aware that he has in himself something of that “power,” and be convinced that that is what freedom is about. Being free would then mean: to be capable of everything one wants, but want only that which one is allowed to or needs to want.

One may have a number of reservations about such an approach to freedom. Ontologization itself is a problem. Is it possible to isolate any being from the stream of causal ties? Does the concept of “being as being” comprise the concept of choice? Leaving aside these reservations, one thing must be emphasised: the proposed approach to freedom entirely passes over the immanent aspect of freedom. Given such an approach, freedom becomes action defining that which is different, but it ceases to be action defining the acting one himself. The act of freedom is like a gush of water out of a punctured container. It is a manifestation of power which acts only outside. Such a power is violence, and as such it affirms itself in that which is different. But the idea of freedom is linked with something opposite. Freedom can stop any outward striving; it can act or not act; freedom is the capacity for “inward” action and self-definition. Thanks to freedom, man—a free being—defines himself (“gives birth to himself”) with regard to this or that. The act of freedom as if “cleaves” being into two “halves,” thanks to which being can self-define through being itself. Freedom is not only a problem of outward action, but above all a problem of “inward” action and “doing within oneself” something that seems impossible. How is it possible for a being, which “as being” is identical with itself, to “abandon” the obtained freedom in favour of “cleaving” and the mirage of another identity? Is a loss of identity not a death of a being? Ontology is lacking in words to describe and explain it. Does a lack of words not often go hand in hand with a lack of sensitivity to that which the word points to?

One more difficulty arises. A degree of the ontologization of freedom—defining freedom through the concept of “force”—would perhaps be understandable when we take into account man’s attitude towards things, to the object, to the scene of drama in general. The kind of object always determines a way in which the subject relates to the object. “Things” and “objects” act through their power and violence. However, it is always the “power” of things that provokes man’s “violence,” and the “violence” of things that triggers “power” in man. But is similar ontologization permissible on the level of man-to-man relation? Is the dialogic relation a proper plane on which to manifest power? Are both action and non-action, thinking and non-thinking, dreaming and non-dreaming, etc., not a manifestation of freedom on that plane?

On the dialogic level new problems and new descriptive categories unknown to ontology emerge. Above all, the problem of responsibility emerges: what does it mean and how is it possible? Responsibility means substitution—a situation in which a person takes the place of another person and takes up their tasks. Where are the ultimate reasons for substitution? How is it possible? How is it possible for one being to “play the role” of another being? What is the justification here? Let us go further: what is the relation between freedom and responsibility? Is freedom a foundation for responsibility, or is responsibility a foundation for freedom?² Can freedom be described without referring to good and evil? But above all, is freedom originally an essential and immanent “property” of a person, or a gift from the other, that is—in other words—is it freedom or liberation? I am formulating these questions not to map out the exact direction of research into freedom, but to show that the very conceptual apparatus, used, inter alia, in these questions, takes us far beyond ontology.

The category of “nothingness” is reckoned among ontological categories too. This concept was employed by Jean-Paul Sartre. From some perspective it was logical: referring to the performed analyses as “ontology,” Sartre had no other choice but to use a borderline ontological concept to define something that lies “beyond ontology.” What did he achieve thereby? He achieved understanding of freedom as a source of negation. Hegel writes: “freedom is negativity,” and Sartre gets to the very bottom of it. What might the reason for negativity be? Only nothingness. But what did he achieve thus? In my opinion nothing except for the possibility of destruction and self-destruction. Such freedom is nothing else but a “destructive force” which says “no.” This power is pre-condemned to operating in the field of ontology as “power” (“powerlessness”) annihilating that which already is only because it is. 

Another endeavour aims—as I have mentioned—at reducing freedom to cognitive, respective “consciousness” categories. It claims that he who “feels like he is dependent upon himself” is free. The degree of world “familiarisation” is a measure of freedom. We familiarise the world by getting to know it. As a consequence, the world no longer “scares” us; we understand it, we know what serves what purpose in it, what we can and what we cannot expect from it and in it. As we get to know the world, we get to know ourselves. Knowing reveals the sagacity of the world as well as our own sagacity. Freedom goes as far as sagacity does. Sagacity is prior to action, nay it simply enables action. It underlies the sphere of “power and powerlessness,” it is “being in light,” an outcome of the “liberating truth.”

An undeniable accomplishment of such an approach to freedom is liberating it from the constraints of ontology. Freedom as a way of “understanding” the world “is not of this world.” Freedom attaches wings to man so that he can look “from above” at everything that limits him. Thanks to freedom man is not “inside the world,” but “in the world.” However, the accomplishments go hand in hand with some limitation. According to the proposed approach truly free is only man’s reason, and all the rest is only free inasmuch as it partakes in the reason. Freedom warns man about unsagacity; unsagacity proves to be identical with bondage. “Truth sets free,” because it sets man in the middle of that which is “familiar.” But does that not mean that the idea of freedom is somehow trimmed down? Can there be no “sagacious bondage”? Does freedom not entail some risk? Does being free not mean going beyond the “familiarised” world and taking the risk of conquering another world? Common sense associates freedom with choice. Is the choice itself not a risk? Does risk not appear wherever “sagacity” ends, and uncertainty and darkness begin? Isn’t it so that not only “truth sets free,” but also “freedom opens one to truth”? For however else can freedom “open one to truth” if not through risk?

To understand the nature of freedom one needs to rise to the agathological level. Freedom is “outside being and non-being.” As we locate the problem of freedom on the agathological level, we cannot but agree that being free above all means: being free in relation to good and evil. Freedom has two main rays: with the one it is pointed outwards, with the other—inwards. With the benefit of the former, freedom accomplishes something in the world. With the benefit of the latter, freedom accomplishes something within itself, and above all qualifies the person with relation to good and evil. In a way freedom “has an effect” on being. But it has an effect just like that which is “higher” has an effect on that which is “lower.” The proper field within which freedom has an effect is a person. The effect freedom has on the person is such that the person chooses his freedom. But the choice of one’s own freedom contains the paradox of freedom: to choose freedom one already needs to be free, but one is not free if one has not chosen freedom. The paradox proves that we have left the sphere of being and are now “outside being and non-being.”

Let us try and at least in part explain the sense of the agathological approach to freedom.

Freedom is first and foremost a dramatic category: it arises among people (to be more precise: between persons). Originally, it is neither in me nor in you, but “between ourselves.” We are free in relation to each other: you are free in relation to me, and I am free in relation to you. There is no problem of freedom in relation to the scene of our drama; this level is more about a problem of “power” and “power-lessness:” I can or I cannot endure tiredness, I can or I cannot suffer hunger, I can or I cannot pick up this stone. The problem of freedom is: to answer or not to answer the question that has been asked to me; to take on or not to take on the challenge that has been presented to me; to share or not to share bread; to kill or not to kill?

The original question, however, does not concern “me,” but “you.” What are you like? Whatever you are like, you are unpredictable. Will you answer my question, will you take on my challenge, will you share bread, will you not kill me? Freedom is first and foremost freedom of the other. It is first and foremost the other that will do whatever he feels like. He is dutiful or fickle, responsible or wilful, predictable or unpredictable. My freedom becomes crystallised within the horizon of and according to the freedom of the other. It is up to his standard or exceeds it; it is freedom with him, for him, against him, beside him. Abstract freedom, extracted from drama, or “freedom as freedom” exists only on paper.

Freedom depicts space between me and the other. It is a space of distance and closeness, a space “next to,” “above” and “below” the other. The sense of our freedom is determined by the structures of the dramatic space. Without “towards you” and “from you,” “with you” and “against you,” “next to,” “below” and “how” freedom would be “void.” We must not forget that in each of the words used dwells some feeling, experience, some attitude towards the other. Beyond the words: “towards the other” we can discern love, fondness, curiosity. Beyond the word “from” concealed is fear, disgust, or even hatred. Between the words: “with you” and “without you” one can conjecture hope and longing. In the structure of “above” lurks pride, while the structure of “below” manifests humility. These structures are suffused with awareness of good and evil. Something is “good” for the other, and “evil” for me, something is “evil” for the other, and “good” for me. Maybe there is something that would be “good” for both me and the other? Freedom enters into an intimate relationship with experiences, particularly axiological experiences, and thanks to them delineates its own preferential space in which it is possible to give preference to one thing and omit another. Such a space makes choice possible. Choice is a fundamental expression of freedom. But the choice is twofold; primary and secondary. The primary choice is about choosing the choice itself; in it, freedom chooses itself. The secondary choice is made as part of the primary choice. 

Two ways in which to study freedom appear. One way is the study of the freedom of the other—another freedom. Here, observation is the study mode. The other way is the study of my freedom; as we follow this way, we use—in most general terms—reflection. We can attain the complete idea of freedom by comparing the results of the observation with the results of the reflection. …

THE OTHER

J. Tischner, Inny. Eseje o spotkaniu, afterword by D. Kot (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2017), pp. 5–7, 17–20, 22–23.

An encounter with the other is an event that opens a new dramatic thread for the encounteree and the encounterer. Arguably, the first consequence of an encounter is a change to the meaning of the space containing the encounterer. The space begins to resemble a crossroads. The Other whom I encounter is in motion, which in me, too, arouses consciousness of possible movement. He can move away and leave—and similarly, I can move away or closer; he can go right, and I can go left, and he can go left, and I can go right; I can humble myself and he can exalt himself, or I can exalt myself and he can humble himself. The so far neutral space now becomes crisscrossed with a number of possible roads. All these possibilities can be—as Antoni Kępiński puts it—narrowed down to two basic ones: you can turn towards or away from the encounteree; exalting and humbling are variants of the “away from—towards” movements too.

The space that is crisscrossed with the roads is an elementary space of freedom. The internal consciousness of freedom reveals itself and attains its fullness through the external consciousness of the space in which “we are placed” by an encounter with the other. We watch our own freedom as a possible movement on the road. Along with the space, time, too, becomes constituted—the time of possible communing with the other, closeness, distance, pursuit, flight, exaltation, humbling. Like space, time too takes on a dramatic significance in an encounter. Space becomes the scene of drama, and time—its internal rhythm.

What does “an/other” mean? “The Other” is not the same as “different.” The word “different” is used with reference to objects, while the word “an/other” with reference to persons, particularly individuals communing with each other. …

To get to know the other as another and non-another means to capture him in his individual, internal ‘bent’ determining his inimitable way of living a life. Then you know—roughly of course—what the other “can stomach,” and what he “cannot stomach.” But is this possible without recognising the bent of one’s own consciousness? The Other’s bent cannot be known through impartial observation, but through a dramatic clash of one’s own bent with his and the resultant misunderstandings and conflicts. Here we are with two bents, that is two different ways of “stomaching the world.” The bents become intertwined, hurt, but are also gladdening, they do not allow for too much closeness or distance. I can see others facing each other. Can they “stomach” each other?

There are two dramatic possibilities: either progressive change towards sameness, or change towards radical otherness. Change towards sameness follows the line I—You—He—Us. Change towards radical otherness follows the line I—You—He—non-Us.

First, the other calls for reconciliation. The foundation for reconciliation is mutual recognition, which can be of an aesthetic, ethical or religious character. (I have written about this at greater length elsewhere¹). A further condition for reconciliation is agreement. For agreement to be effective, it is essential to understand each other. For understanding to be effective, in turn, it is necessary to have appropriate “agreement material.” Material comes along with experience. Experience is of an “analogising” character; it is an experience of similarity in dissimilarity. How does the intention of a challenge of reconciliation present itself? That is, the challenge that radiates from the other?

At first the challenge contains some negation: it calls upon me to become the other to myself. If I stay the same, I will not understand, nor will I become reconciled. My eyes, which look, but do not discern, must become other eyes; likewise, my ears and my mind. Negation penetrates deep and attacks my individual bent with which I “stomach the world.” I can no longer be I-in-myself-and-for-myself, but I must become I-with-the other, or even I-for-the other. I must “open up” to the very otherness of the other, “enduring” my own otherness. In this otherness I must “immerse myself,” “become submerged” and “die to myself.” Such a change is nothing else but a consistent change of viewpoint—from mine to his. The fruit of the consistency is that I no longer is I, but You—I am You to the other.

The movement of reconciliation can, however, be pointed in the opposite direction. Not only can I be challenged by the other, but the other can be challenged by me too. Then, his You immerses itself and becomes submerged in my I, challenging his bent concerned with the way he is affected by the world, and his individuality. Challenging goes both ways—You becomes me, and then I becomes him. There is no hard and fast rule about that. The boundaries separating I from You become blurred. If there is anything like mutual recognition, then it is only in the sense of possibility: I recognise you, because you can become me; I am recognised by you, because I can become you. There is truly neither me nor you in our once-and-for-all fixed identity; we morph into each other, lose each other and win each other.

Me morphing into you, and you morphing into me takes place within the experience one boundary of which is caress, and the other is cruelty.

Caress is, in its essence, an analogising experience whereby changing from I to You and from You to I is given in a direct way. It is about discovering yourself in the other and the other in yourself. Caress keeps revealing the same thing: affinity between feelings, sensitivity, and belonging to each other. They are “two in one body.” Always close, and yet not close enough; feasting on each other, and yet still hungry for each other; more and more open to each other, and yet inscrutable in their bents towards each other. Lévinas writes: “proximity is never close enough.” Further on: “Caress as contact is sensuality. But caress transcends that which can become perceptible to senses.” …

The other boundary of direct communing between You and I is cruelty. The germ of cruelty is contained in the very relation of challenging the “wilful independence” of I by the other. The other attacks my eyes so that they are able to look at the world through his eyes as well; he attacks my ears so that they are able to hear what he hears; he undermines the sovereignty of the viewpoint which is my viewpoint. Promising nothing in return, the other demands that I become his sustenance, his component, him. The other inflicts pain. Through pain he extends the boundaries of his realm. …

RELIGIOUS THINKING

J. Tischner, Myślenie według wartości, 3rd ed. (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2000), pp. 336–339.

The grand philosophical and theological tradition of Christianity defined the mutual relation between faith and reason with the dynamic word “seeking.” “Faith seeks understanding”—as Augustine followers would say, and “intellect seeks faith”—as Thomism adherents would say. Despite the evident opposition of the attitudes, the word “seeking” has made its way into both the formulas. To seek means to: have and not have at the same time. We seek only that which we do not have. At the same time, however, that which we seek already affects us, already consigns itself to our presentiments, our imagination, our memory, and has its idea in us. If faith seeks reason, reason affects faith; if reason seeks faith, faith is not that alien to it. Like beckons like, like seeks like.

What does the word “seeking,” which features in the above formulas, tell us? What does it refer to and what does it express? The word speaks about the existence of religious thinking. The man whose reason is seeking faith, and whose faith is seeking reason thinks in a religious manner. His faith becomes manifest in his thinking, and his thinking becomes manifest in his faith. There is no unbridgeable divide between faith and thinking. Nor is there any endeavour to destroy the one with the other. Religious thinking arises out of the recognition of the laws of religion and the laws of reason. By recognising the laws of reason, faith becomes thinking; by recognising the laws of faith, reason affects its nature.

In olden times, a metaphor of light was widely used to describe the mystery of cognition. People would speak about “light of faith” and “light of reason.” Light combines with light, like water with water, like air with air—no resistance, no contention. And even though in the light of reason the world looks different than in the light of faith, the difference in the appearances kills neither faith nor reason. On the contrary, one light encourages the other light; it is inspiration and a tempting promise. If man had either of the lights taken away from him, his world and himself would be worse off.

We are setting ourselves a task of better understanding of the relation between faith and reason, between religion and knowledge sensu lato, which is a fruit of reasoning. In order to realise our intention, we should take a closer look at the phenomenon of religious thinking. What is it? What are the conditions of possibility? What foundation does it spring from and what hopes does it feed on?

Modern religious and anti-religious philosophy has given quite a raw deal to the idea of religious thinking. Extreme rationalism, which came to be expressed in the atheism of the Age of Enlightenment, challenged the significance of such thinking: in its eyes—religious thinking is conditioned by faith dogmas, and so in fact it is not thinking, because it is not critical enough. Extreme fideism took the opposite stance: only thinking that unfolds according to Revelation is authentic, for in fideism Revelation comes down to an individual inspiration through directly given grace. Intermediate positions appear between these two extremes. Kant says that his philosophy overthrows reason to make room for faith. The domain of faith is the domain of practice (practical reason), where, admittedly, thinking is possible, but scientific cognition is not, because the domain goes beyond the sphere of possible experience. The domain of cognitive reason is a domain of possible experience, in which there are no foundations for religion. Therefore, neither reason should seek faith, nor faith should seek reason. Kant creates a gulf between faith and reason, the benefit of which is that henceforth a conflict between the one and the other is impossible—the conflict that has been the bane of the modern times. Hegel stands in some opposition to Kant. In religion he discerns the same truth that philosophy discovers and defends, the difference being that in religion the truth dwells as an image, while in philosophy it dwells as a system. However, a proper form of truth is not an image, but a system. That is why religion must be “done away with” by absolute philosophical knowledge. For religious thinking is, as Hegel asserts, “…chaotic jingling of bells, or a mist of warm incense, a musical thinking that does not get as far as the Notion, which would be the sole, immanent objective mode of thought.”¹ Reason can thus learn a lot from religion and so it should investigate it, but only so that faith stops speaking.

The attitudes outlined here are not only a philosophers’ figment, but they are an expression of more general endeavour. Extreme rationalism and extreme fideism—justified in many different ways—determine two main opposition poles towards which positive science enthusiasts on the one hand, and charismatic experience enthusiasts on the other hand gravitate today. Kant’s solution finds its continuation in the work by, inter alia, some neo-Thomists, the difference being without invoking Kant, but adducing the findings of the modern, positivist and neo-positivist methodology of science. The traces of Hegel’s views can be found in the attitude of many researchers and philosophers, who, being genuinely interested in religion, meticulously describe and interpret religious phenomena, while themselves adopting a posture of superiority towards them. To all these approaches the idea of seeking is like a lapis offensionis.

It is astounding to see how far various philosophical and theological interpretations of religion have moved from the simplest experiences of faith and thinking, what a distorted image of religiousness they have found to be genuine. Is man able not to seek? Is faith that might rid itself of longing for understanding possible? Is thinking that might not desire to use one light more possible? If anyone really rid themselves of such kinds of longing, would they not lapse into graver danger than a threat of conflict between faith and knowledge—a threat of internal ego split, a posture of non-authenticity, a crisis of their own identity. One may sometimes believe and not understand, one may also understand and not want to believe, but—how long? And to what degree in earnest? Seeking is not only about this or that doctrine—a doctrine can always be bent to fit the needs—it is a matter of existential truth of man. This truth is indivisible—it is the same on the level of faith as on the level of thinking. You cannot be an atheist or agnostic in thinking, and a believer in action. If one does not fit the other, seeking begins—seeking of unity. The following must be strongly emphasised: religious thinking exists—and it precedes theories of such thinking. One should endeavour to do justice to it. The first act of justice towards it is an accurate description. Only then comes the time for criticism and any possible modifications.

What is religious thinking? What are its roots? What hopes does it serve?

All thinking is someone’s thinking, thinking with someone and thinking about something. Thus thinking has three dimensions: a subjective dimension (I think), a dialogic dimension (I think with you), an objective dimension (we think about it). These three dimensions constitute three fundamental conditions for the possibility of thinking. In order to understand the essence of thinking in general, including the essence of religious thinking, one needs to consider it, paying special attention to its conditions of possibility. …

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Works by Józef Tischner (selection, in chronological order)

Books

Tischner, J. Polski kształt dialogu, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1979.

—. Etyka Solidarności, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1981.

—. Der unmögliche Dialog: Christentum und Marxismus in Polen, trans. T. Mechtenberg. Graz–Wien–Köln: Verlag Styria, 1982.

—. Ethik der Solidarität. Prinzipien einer Hoffnung. Graz–Wien–Köln: Verlag Styria, 1982.

—. Éthique de Solidarité, trans. K. Jocz. Limoges: Librairie Adolphe Ardant et Critérion, 1982.

—. Ética de la solidaridad, trans. M.J. Rodríguez Fierro. Madrid: Ediciones Encuentro, 1983.

—. The Spirit of Solidarity, trans. M.B. Zaleski, B. Fiore. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984.

—. Polska jest Ojczyzną. Paris: Éditions du Dialogue, Société d’Éditions Internationales, 1985.

—. Filozofia człowieka, vol. 1: Od ontologii do metafizyki człowieka. Kraków: Wydział Filozofii Papieskiej Akademii Teologicznej w Krakowie, 1986.

—. Marxism and Christianity: the quarrel and the dialogue in Poland, trans. M.B. Zaleski, B. Fiore. Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1987.

—. Das menschliche Drama. Phänomenologische Studien zur Philosophie des Dramas, Aus dem Polnischen von S. Dzida. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1989.

Tischner, J. (ed.). Filozofia współczesna. Kraków: Instytut Teologiczny Księży Misjonarzy, 1989.

Tischner, J. Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, Paris: Éditions du Dialogue; Société d’Éditions Internationales, 1990.

—. Książeczka pielgrzyma. Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: Wydawnictwo Calvarianum, 1990.

—. Polski młyn. Kraków: Nasza Przeszłość, 1991.

—. Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PAT, 1991.

—. Boski młyn. Kraków: Oficyna Podhalańska „Secesja”, 1992.

—. Etyka solidarności oraz Homo sovieticus, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1992.

—. Miłość niemiłowana. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Sławomira Grotomirskiego, 1993.

—. Nieszczęsny dar wolności. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1993.

—. Spowiedź rewolucjonisty: Czytając “Fenomenologię ducha Hegla.” Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1993.

—. Czytając “Veritatis splendor.” Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1994.

—. Idzie o honor. Kraków: Oficyna Podhalańska „Secesja”, 1994.

—. Świat ludzkiej nadziei. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1994.

Tischner, J., Życiński, J., McLean, G.F. The Philosophy of Person: Solidarity and Cultural Creativity. Washington: Paideia Press: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1994.

Tischner, J., Michnik, A., Żakowski, J. Między Panem a Plebanem. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1995.

Tischner, J., Żakowski, J. Tischner czyta katechizm. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1996.

Tischner, J. W krainie schorowanej wyobraźni. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1997.

—. Spór o istnienie człowieka. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1998.

—. Drogi i bezdroża miłosierdzia. Kraków: Wydawnictwo AA; Wydawnictwo M, 1999.

—. Ksiądz na manowcach. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1999.

—. Jak żyć? Wrocław: TUM Wydawnictwo Wrocławskiej Księgarni Archidiecezjalnej, 2000.

—. Miłość nas rozumie: Rok liturgiczny z księdzem Tischnerem. Selected and annotated by W. Bonowicz. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2000.

—. Myślenie według wartości, 3rd edition. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2000.

—. Myśli wyszukane. Selected and annotated by W. Bonowicz. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2000.

—. Pomoc w rachunku sumienia. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2000.

Tischner, J., Czubernatowa, W. Wieści ze słuchalnicy. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2001.

Tischner, J. O człowieku. Wybór pism filozoficznych. Selected and annotated by A. Bobko, Wrocław–Warszawa–Kraków: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 2003.

—. Słowo o ślebodzie. Kazania spod Turbacza 1981–1997. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2003.

—. Spotkanie. Z ks. Józefem Tischnerem rozmawia Anna Karoń-Ostrowska. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2003.

—. Myślenie w żywiole piękna. Selected and annotated by W. Bonowicz. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2004.

—. Idąc przez puste błonia. Annotation and afterword by W. Bonowicz. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2005.

—. Wokół Biblii. Z księdzem Józefem Tischnerem rozmawia Ewelina Puczek. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2005.

—. Studia z filozofii świadomości. Dzieła zebrane. Annotation and foreword by A. Węgrzecki. Kraków: Instytut Myśli Józefa Tischnera, 2006.

—. Zrozumieć własną wiarę. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2006.

—. Filozofia ludskiej dramy, trans. J. Matyas. Bratislava: Vydavatelstvo Serafin, 2007.

—. Etyka a historia. Wykłady. Annotation and foreword by D. Kot. Kraków: Instytut Myśli Józefa Tischnera, 2008.

—. Wiara ze słuchania. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2009.

—. Der Streit um die Existenz des Menschen. Aus dem Polnischen und mit einer Einführung von Steffen Huber, Berlin: Insel Verlag, 2010.

—. La philosophie du drame, trans. M. Laurent. Paris: Cerf, 2012.

—. Współczesna filozofia ludzkiego dramatu. Wykłady. Annotation and foreword by D. Kot, A. Węgrzcki. Kraków: Instytut Myśli Józefa Tischnera, 2012.

—. Dziennik 1944–1949. Niewielkie pomieszanie klepek. Annotation by M. Tischner and W. Bonowicz. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2014.

—. Oby wszyscy tak milczeli o Bogu! Z Ks. Józefem Tischnerem rozmawia Anna Karoń-Ostrowska. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2015.

—. Inny. Esej o spotkaniu. Afterword by D. Kot. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2017.

Articles and chapters in books

 Tischner, J., “Czy egzystencjalizm jest humanizmem?” Homo Dei 8, no. 3 (1958), pp. 393–397.

—. “Zagadnienie istnienia Boga w świadomości współczesnego katolika (Przyczynek do badań nad strukturą polskiego ‘katolicyzmu powiatowego’),” Więź, no. 1(21) (1960), pp. 64–65.

—. “Strukturalne zagadnienia refleksji i spostrzeżenia immanentnego w świetle niektórych tez Edmunda Husserla,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae, no. 1 (1966), pp. 205–257.

—. “Z problematyki wychowania chrześcijańskiego,” Znak, no. 11(149) (1966), pp. 1334–1345.

—. “Prowokacja Ericha Fromma,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 2 (1967), pp. 1–2.

—. “Ludzka twarz prawa natury,” Znak, no. 6(180) (1968), pp. 747–760.

—. “Prolegomena chrześcijańskiej filozofii śmierci,” Znak, no. 4(166) (1968), pp. 422–441.

—. “Świat wielkiej nadziei,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 15 (1968), pp. 1, 7.

—. “Z problematyki nauczania,” Znak, no. 7–8(269–270) (1968), pp. 903–914.

—. “Chochoł sarmackiej melancholii,” Znak, no. 10(196) (1970), pp. 1243–1254.

—. “Impresje aksjologiczne,” Znak, no. 2–3(188–189) (1970), pp. 204–220.

—. “Mit i nowa antropologia,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 34 (1970), p. 4.

—. “Schyłek chrześcijaństwa tomistycznego,” Znak, no. 1(187) (1970), pp. 1–20.

—. “W poszukiwaniu istoty wolności,” Znak, no. 7–8(193–194) (1970), pp. 821–838.

—. “Aksjologiczne podstawy doświadczenia ‘ja’ jako całości cielesno-przestrzennej,” in Logos i ethos. Rozprawy filozoficzne, ed. K. Kłósak, pp. 33–82. Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1971.

—. “Było formalistów wielu,” Znak, no. 6(216) (1972), pp. 795–801.

—. “Egzystencja i wartości,” Znak, no. 7–8(217–218) (1972), pp. 917–931.

—. “Refleksje o etyce pracy,” Znak, no. 6(216) (1972), pp. 848–863.

—. “Rewolucja i patologia nadziei,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 15 (1972), pp. 1, 2.

—. “Filozofia i ludzkie sprawy człowieka,” Znak, no. 1(223) (1973), pp. 18–30.

—. “Od prawdy do sądu prawdy o egzystencji,” Analecta Cracoviensia 4 (1972), pp. 51–67.

—. “Swemu istnieniu zaufać,” Znak, no. 11(221) (1972), pp. 1557–1562.

—. “Wartości etyczne i ich poznanie,” Znak, no. 5(215) (1972), pp. 629–646.

—. “Filozofia i chrześcijaństwo,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 5 (1974), pp. 3–5.

—. “Filozofia wypróbowanej nadziei,” Znak, no. 3(237) (1974), pp. 331–345.

—. “Ku Transcendencji, która jest Osobą,” W Drodze, no. 2 (1974), pp. 3–16.

—. “Świadectwo filozofii,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 18 (1974), pp. 3–4.

—. “Etos wolności,” Znak, no. 2(248) (1975), pp. 185–194.

—. “Martin Heidegger,” W Drodze, no. 8 (1976), pp. 19–25.

—. “Między moralnym kompromisem a utopią,” Znak, no. 10(280) (1977), pp. 1103–1121.

—. “Przestrzeń obcowania z Drugim,” Analecta Cracoviensia 9 (1977), pp. 67–86.

—. “Refleksja nad myśleniem i uczestnictwem,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 49 (1977), pp. 1, 2.

—. “Sumienie i odpowiedzialność,” W Drodze, no. 6 (1977), pp. 15–20.

—. “Świat ludzkiej pracy,” W Drodze, no. 7 (1977), pp. 3–7.

—. “Świat wartości etycznych,” W Drodze, no. 2 (1977), pp. 3–11.

—. “Tomizm bez mitologii,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 11 (1977), pp. 1, 2.

—. “Pozwolić drugiemu być,” W Drodze, no. 5 (1977), pp. 55–60.

—. “Fenomenologia spotkania,” Analacta Cracoviensia 10 (1978), pp. 73–98.

—. “Ludzie z kryjówek,” Znak, no. 1(283) (1978), pp. 57–72.

—. “Solidaryzacja i problem ewolucji świadomości,” in Studia z teorii poznania i filozofii wartości, ed. W. Stróżewski, pp. 91–102. Kraków: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1978.

—. “Sztuka etyki,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 8 (1978), pp. 4–5.

—. “W kręgu myśli Husserlowskiej,” Archiwum Historii Filozofii i Myśli Społecznej 24 (1978), pp. 215–236.

—. Filozofia chrześcijańska w dialogu z marksizmem (do użytku wewnętrznego), Kraków: Instytut Filozofii przy Papieskim Wydziale Teologicznym; Instytut Teologiczny Księży Misjonarzy w Krakowie, 1979.

—. “Labirynty racjonalizmu,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 5 (1979), p. 5.

—. “Bezdroża spotkań,” Analecta Cracoviensia 12 (1980), pp. 137–172.

—. “Myślenie o etosie społecznym,” Znak, no. 3(290) (1980), pp. 290–300.

—. “Czas zakorzenienia. Homilia ks. Prof. Józefa Tischnera wygłoszona na otwarcie drugiej tury Zjazdu NSZZ ‘Solidarność’,” Kierunki, no. 41 (1981), pp. 1–2.

—. “Człowiek zniewolony i sprawa wolności (Hegel – Dostojewski – Descartes),” Znak, no. 1–2(319–320) (1981), pp. 123–142.

—. “Dialog z filozofia marksistowską,” in Filozofia chrześcijańska w dialogu. Collective work, pp. 21–39c. Kraków: Studium Myśli Chrześcijańskiej przy Duszpasterstwie Akademickim w Krakowie, 1981.

—. “Niepodległość pracy,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 38 (1981), p. 1.

—. “Perspektywy etyki Solidarności,” W Drodze, no. 10 (1981), pp. 85–93.

—. “Przesłanie o człowieku i jego pracy,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 42 (1981), pp. 1, 4.

—. “Spór o kształt ludzkiej nadziei,” in J. Tischner, Filozofia chrześcijańska w dialogu. Collective work, pp. 40–48. Kraków: Studium Myśli Chrześcijańskiej przy Duszpasterstwie Akademickim w Krakowie, 1981.

—. “Podstawy etyki – jak żyć?” in J. Bukowski, J. Tischner, Podstawy wiary – w co wierzę? Podstawy etyki – jak żyć?, pp. 162–249 (Katechizm Religii Katolickiej, part 9). Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Wrocławskiej Księgarni Archidiecezjalnej, 1982.

—. “Prawda i sprawiedliwość,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 49 (1982), pp. 1, 7.

—. “Spojrzenie matki,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 52 (1982), pp. 1, 2.

—. “Zło w dialogu kuszenia,” Znak, no. 3(328) (1982), pp. 3–40.

—. “Sympozjum w Castel Gandolfo,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 36 (1983), pp. 1, 4.

—. “Uświęcenie pracy,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 45 (1983), pp. 1, 7.

—. “Etyka wartości i nadziei,” in D. von Hildebrand, J.A. Kłoczowski, J. Paściak, ks. J. Tischner, Wobec wartości, pp. 55–149. Poznań: W Drodze, 1984.

—. “Od nienawiści do tchórzostwa,” W Drodze, no. 9 (1984), pp. 60–65.

—. “Der Leib als Wert im Drama des Menschen,” in Christliche Anthropologie als Perspektive für die Medizin, ed. H.J. Patt, pp. 43–53. Köln: J.P. Bachem Verlag, 1985.

—. “Ethik der Solidarität,” in Damit die Erde menschlich bleibt: Gemeinsame Verantwortung von Juden und Christen für die Zukunft, eds. W. Breuning, H. Heinz, pp. 114–127. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder Verlag, 1985.

—. “Kryzys jako kryzys myślenia (Na marginesie dyskusji w Castel Gandolfo),” Tygodnik Powszechny,no. 46 (1985), pp. 1, 2.

—. “Nadzieja szukająca prawdy,” Znak, no. 12(373) (1985), pp. 3–14.

—. “Wezwani do wolności (Aksjologia wolności a religia),” Znak, no. 1–2(362–363) (1985), pp. 204–212.

—. “Władza a technika,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 33 (1985), pp. 1, 4.

—. “Ideologiczne usprawiedliwienie przemocy,” Dwadzieścia Jeden, no. 1 (1986), pp. 96–104.

—. “Między pytaniem a odpowiedzią, czyli u źródeł obiektywizmu,” Studia Filozoficzne, no. 5–6 (1986), pp. 115–127.

—. “Rodowód ludzkiej godności,” W Drodze, no. 49 (1986), pp. 49–54.

—. “Rozważania o wyzwoleniu i wspólnocie,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 24 (1986), pp. 1, 2.

—. “Klucz do kwestii społecznej (Filozofia pracy),” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 23 (1987), pp. 1, 7.

—. “Kłamstwo polityczne,” Krytyka, no. 25 (1987), pp. 20–26.

—. “Własność prywatna i jej wrogowie,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 35 (1987), pp. 1, 2.

—. “Wokół spraw wiary i rozumu,” in Filozofować w kontekście nauki, eds. M. Heller, A. Michalik, J. Życiński, pp. 35–45. Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1987.

—. “Dwie metafory początku,” Analecta Cracoviensia 19 (1988), pp. 487–494.

—. “Spór o człowieka, czyli komunizm i chrześcijaństwo w Polsce po drugiej wojnie światowej,” Ojcowizna, no. 60 (1988), pp. 2–24.

—. “Śmierć człowieka,” Akcent, no. 4 (1988), pp. 132–137.

—. “Fenomenologia i hermeneutyka,” in Jak filozofować? Studia z metodologii filozofii. Collected and annotated by J. Perzanowski, pp. 130–144. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1989.

—. “Intencjonalność a dialogiczność,” Ruch Filozoficzny, no. 3 (1989), p. 304.

—. “Marksizm a teoria osobowości,” in Filozofia współczesna, ed. J. Tischner, pp. 261–279. Kraków: Instytut Teologiczny Księży Misjonarzy, 1989.

—. “Polski młyn,” Tygodnik Solidarność, no. 25 (1989), p. 3.

—. “Teologia wyzwolenia a etyka Solidarności,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 23 (1989), pp. 1–2.

—. “Totalitaryzm usprawiedliwiony,” Nasza Rodzina, no. 3 (1989), pp. 32–35.

—. “Mądrość,” Nasza Rodzina, no. 2 (1990), p. 14.

—. “Solidarność a rewolucja,” Ethos, no. 11–12 (1990), pp. 111–113.

—. “Kościół nie jest partią,” Przegląd Tygodniowy, no. 42 (1991), p. 3.

—. “Ludzie z mrokiem w sercu. Przyczynek do sprawy aborcji,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 28 (1991), p. 3.

—. “Próba wyjaśnień (na temat życia poczętego w Polsce),” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 48 (1991), pp. 6–7.

—. “Umeblowanie głów. Zmiany w świadomości społecznej Polaków,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 15 (1991), pp. 1, 18.

—. “Krytyka i obrona Kościoła (Rozdroża fundamentalizmu),” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 14 (1992), p. 6.

—. “Łaska i wolność, czyli spór o podstawy liberalizmu,” Znak, no. 5(444) (1992), pp. 4–26.

—. “Obecność myślenia (Wiedeński Instytut Nauki o Człowieku),” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 31 (1992), p. 6.

—. “O dobrym i niedobrym użyciu moralności – ewangelizacja, czy dekomunizacja?” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 13 (1992), p. 4.

—. “Wiara w mrocznych czasach,” Znak, no. 4(443) (1992), pp. 5–16.

—. “Wolność – łaska wszystkich łask. O liberalizmie chrześcijańskim,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 12 (1992), pp. 1, 7.

—. “Człowiek sprawdzonej wolności,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 31 (1993), pp. 7–8.

—. “Miejsce dla Pana Boga,” Wprost, no. 23 (1993), pp. 33–35.

—. “Władza konsumpcji a konsumpcja władzy,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 6 (1993), p. 5.

—. “Wolność – w modlitwie o wolność,” Znak, no. 10(461) (1993), pp. 5–10.

—. “Wolność w blasku prawdy (Papieska encyklika ‘Veritatis splendor’),” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 48 (1993), pp. 5–6.

—. “Zło metafizyczne czyli wejrzenie w otchłań,” Znak, no. 3(454) (1993), pp. 13–28.

—. “Polemika: Państwo prawdy i państwo prawa,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 49 (1994), pp. 8–9.

—. “Wobec zła: wokół ‘Veritatis splendor’,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 2 (1994), pp. 1, 8.

—. “Gra wokół odpowiedzialności,” Znak, no. 10(485) (1995), pp. 47–55.

—. “Lęk przed odpowiedzialnością. Etyka bierności,” Home and Market, no. 8 (1995).

—. “Religia polityczna,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 50 (1996), pp. 1, 9.

—. “Droga Sokratesa i perć Sabały. Uwagi o filozofii wychowania,” Znak, no. 11(498) (1996), pp. 41–45.

—. “O stylu myślenia,” Znak, no. 4(491) (1996), pp. 113–119.

—. “Porozumienie i rozumienie człowieka,” Dialog, no. 3–4 (1996), pp. 52–56.

—. “Uprawiam filozofię dobra,” in Rozmowy o filozofii, eds. A. Zieliński, M. Bagiński, J. Wojtysiak, pp. 249–267. Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1996.

—. “Wiara bezinteresowna.” Interview conducted by J. Żakowski, Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 17 (1996), p. 11.

—. “Wychodzenie z kryjówek.” Interview conducted by W. Łuka, Prawo i Życie, no. 51–52 (1996), pp. 1, 8.

—. Historia filozofii po góralsku. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1997.

—. “Kościół łaski,” Znak, no. 1(500) (1997), pp. 16–19.

—. “Małe prawdy, duże kłamstwo,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 21 (1997), pp. 1, 5.

—. “Naród i jego prawa. Komentarz do przemówienia Jana Pawła II na forum ONZ w październiku 1995 roku,” Znak, no. 4(503) (1997), pp. 27–45.

—. “Odpowiedzialność – powrót do źródeł,” Znak, no. 6(505) (1997), pp. 119–124.

—. “Promieniowanie twórczej wzajemności,” Więź, no. 6 (1997), pp. 13–19.

—. “Przeszedł dobrze czyniąc,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 51/52 (1997), pp. 1, 4.

—. “Pytanie o sens,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 30 (1997), p. 3.

—. “Religia schorowanej wyobraźni,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 15 (1997), pp. 1, 5.

—. “Tożsamość wiary,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 5 (1997), pp. 1, 5.

—. “Wiara i potrzeby świata,” W Drodze, no. 1 (1997), pp. 82–85.

—. “Cierpkie winogrona i chytrość rozumu,” Znak, no. 8(519) (1998), pp. 34–41.

—. “Ewangelia – nadzieją czy wspomnieniem?” Kultura, no. 9 (1998), pp. 13–25.

—. “Krótki traktat o naturze służby,” Analecta Cracoviensia 30–31 (1998–1999), pp. 83–87.

—. “Adwentowe krajobrazy,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 48 (1999), pp. 1–2.

—. “Epizody sensu,” Logos i Ethos, no. 1 (1999), pp. 69–78.

—. “Metamorfozy naszej pracy,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 32 (1999), pp. 1, 10.

—. “Niebiańskie ideały i ziemskie złudzenia,” Znak, no. 2(525) (1999), pp. 38–52.

—. “Pochwalna pieśń Boga. Rozmowa o ośmiu błogosławieństwach.” Interview conducted by D. Zańko, J. Gowin, Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 14 (1999), p. 5.

—. “Religia władzy czy wyzwolenia,” Gazeta Wyborcza, no. 213 (1999), p. 26.

—. “Robespierre i siostra Faustyna,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 1 (1999), pp. 1, 9.

—. “Wydarzenie mowy,” Przegląd Filozoficzny, no. 2 (1999), pp. 63–72.

—. “Tajemnica choroby,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 28 (2000).

—. “Czym jest filozofia, którą uprawiam,” in J. Tischner, Myślenie według wartości, pp. 5–9. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2002.

—. “Himmlische Ideale und irdische Illusionen,” in Anti-Totalitarismus. Eine polnische Debatte, ed. P. Śpiewak, pp. 212–234. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2003.

—. “Tragiczny błąd terroryzmu,” Znak, no. 7–8(590–591) (2004), p. 175.

—. “O odwadze i nadziei.” Interview conducted by E. Puczek, Charaktery, no. 6 (2005), p. 67.

—. “Fenomenologia świadomości egotycznej,” in Studia z filozofii świadomości. Dzieła zebrane. Scholarly annotation and foreword by A. Węgrzecki. Kraków: Instytut Myśli Józefa Tischnera, 2006.

—. “Ja transcendentalne w filozofii Edmunda Husserla,” in J. Tischner, Studia z filozofii świadomości. Dzieła zebrane. Scholarly annotation and foreword by A. Węgrzecki. Kraków: Instytut Myśli Józefa Tischnera, 2006.

—. “Naprawić ludzką śmierć. Niepublikowane rekolekcje ks. J. Tischnera, wygł. w 1966 r. w poznańskim kościele dominikanów.” Prepress prepared by W. Bonowicz, Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 12 (2008), pp. 8–9.

—. “Tajemnica kilku pojęć teatralnych,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 19 (2008).

Subject bibliography and supplementary literature

“I Krajowy Zjazd Delegatów NSZZ ‘Solidarność’,” http://www.solidarnosc.org.pl/wszechnica/page_id=174/index.html (accessed: 20.09.2019).

“31 lat temu kraj objęła wiosenna fala strajków,” http://dzieje.pl/aktualnosci/wiosenna-fala-strajkow-w-1988-r (accessed: 20.08.2019).

Adamczyk, A. “Nadzieja w horyzoncie dramatu. Koncepcja nadziei w filozofii Józefa Tischnera,” Przegląd Filozoficzno-Literacki, no. 1–2 (2005), pp. 241–250.

Alfabet Tischnera. Selected and annotated by W. Bonowicz. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2012.

Baczyński, W. Człowiek jako istota dramatyczna w ujęciu księdza Józefa Tischnera. Wrocław: Papieski Wydział Teologiczny, 2004.

Barszczak, S. Chabry wolności. Studium myśli ks. Józefa Tischnera. Częstochowa: Wydawnictwo Garmond, 2005.

“Bądź wolność twoja”. Józefa Tischnera refleksja nad życiem publicznym, eds. J. Jagiełło, W. Zuziak. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak; Wydział Filozoficzny Papieskiej Akademii Teologicznej w Krakowie, 2005.

Bereś, W., Więcek “Baron”, A. Tischner – życie w opowieściach: na podstawie scenariusza filmu “Tischner – życie w opowieściach”. Warszawa: Świat Książki,2008.

—. Tischner. Podróż. Warszawa: Wielka Litera, 2015.

Bielawski, M. “Teologiczne manowce Tischnera,” Znak, no. 3(550) (2001), pp. 9–24.

Bobko, A. “Józefa Tischnera myślenie o człowieku,” in J. Tischner, O człowieku. Wybór pism filozoficznych. Selected and annotated by A. Bobko, pp. 5–50. Wrocław–Warszawa–Kraków: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 2003.

—. Myślenie wobec zła. Polityczny i religijny wymiar myślenia w filozofii Kanta i Tischnera. Kraków–Rzeszów: Instytut Myśli Józefa Tischnera, 2007.

—. “Poszukiwanie prawdy o człowieku,” Znak, no. 3(550) (2001), pp. 56–70.

Bonowicz, W. “Co powiedział TW ‘Andrzej’. Donosy na księdza Józefa Tischnera,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 9 (2007), p. 11.

—. “Czas nowej wspólnoty. ‘Etyka solidarności’ księdza Józefa Tischnera,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 36 (2005), pp. 18–19.

—. Kapelusz na wodzie. Gawędy o księdzu Tischnerze. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2010.

—. “Parafia Tischnera,” Znak, no. 3(550) (2001), pp. 71–82.

—. Tischner. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2001.

Bonowicz, W., Ryś, G., Poniewierski, J., Boniecki, A. Sakrament wspólnoty. “Eucharystia w myśli Jana Pawła II i ks. Józefa Tischnera,” Znak, no. 9(604) (2005), pp. 71–84.

Borowicz, A.Transcendentalizm w filozofii Józefa Tischnera. Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo UG, 2010.

Borowiec, P. Czas polityczny po rewolucji. Czas w polskim dyskursie politycznym po 1989 roku. Kraków: Wydawnictwo UJ, 2013.

Bożejewicz, W. Tischner. Poglądy filozoficzno-antropologiczne. Szkice. Warszawa: Oficyna Wydawnicza Łośgraf, 2006.

Brejdak, J. “O solidarnej naturze osoby w ujęciu Józefa Tischnera i Maksa Schelera,” in Spory o naturę człowieka. Józefowi Tischnerowi w 15. rocznicę śmierci, ed. J. Jagiełło, pp. 69–88. Kielce: Wydawnictwo Jedność, 2015. 

Człowiek wobec wartości, eds. J. Jagiełło, W. Zuziak. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2006.

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The young Tischner’s journal notes were published in: J. Tischner, Dziennik 1944–1949. Niewielkie pomieszanie klepek (Kraków: Wydawnictwo WAM, 2014). By providing a brief outline of Tischner’s life, I deliberately refer for the most part to this publication in order to show the process of the formation of this future philosopher and priest. Although written in simple language, Dziennik is an invaluable source of knowledge about the author. Perforce, the presented biography does not offer purely factual material, but rather attempts to capture some of the inspirations and trajectory of his life.

J. Tischner, Dziennik 1944–1949. Niewielkie pomieszanie klepek, p. 3.

  Ibidem, p. 37.

  Ibidem, p. 57.

  Ibidem.

  Ibidem, p. 69.

  Ibidem.

  Ibidem, p. 85

  Ibidem.

  Ibidem.

Ibidem, p. 87.

  Ibidem, p. 99.

  Ibidem, p. 117.

  Ibidem, p. 180.

  Ibidem, p. 243.

  Ibidem, p. 313.

  Ibidem, p. 289.

  Ibidem, p. 295.

Ibidem, p. 309.

Ibidem, p. 314.

A. Michnik, J. Tischner, J. Żakowski, Między Panem a Plebanem (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1995), p. 21.

Ibidem, p. 38.

W. Bonowicz, Tischner (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2001), p. 151.

Ibidem, p. 193.

J. Tischner, “Zagadnienie istnienia Boga w świadomości współczesnego katolika (Przyczynek do badań nad strukturą polskiego ‘katolicyzmu powiatowego’),” Więź, no. 1(21) (1960), p. 75.

Idem, “Schyłek chrześcijaństwa tomistycznego,” Znak, no. 1(187) (1970), pp. 1–20.

Idem, “Impresje aksjologiczne,” Znak, no. 2–3(188–189) (1970), pp. 204–220.

Idem, “W poszukiwaniu istoty wolności,” Znak, no. 7–8(193–194) (1970), pp. 821–838.

Idem, “Refleksje o etyce pracy,” Znak, nr 6(216) (1972), pp. 848–863.

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D. Markowski, “Goralenvolk – anatomia zdrady,” Mówią Wieki, no. 1 (2010), p. 22.

Ibidem.

Ibidem.

A. Michnik, J. Tischner, J. Żakowski, Między Panem a Plebanem, p. 10.

D. Markowski, Goralenvolk – anatomia zdrady, p. 26.

“Prawda o Józefie Kurasiu ‘Ogniu’,” http://partyzanciakpodhale.pl/kto-na-tym-korzysta/105-kto-na-tym-korzysta/196-julian-tomecki-prawda-oogniu (accessed: 20.08.2019).

“Józef Kuraś ‘Ogień’,” http://dzieje.pl/artykulyhistoryczne/jozef-kuras-ogien-tragiczny-bohater (accessed: 20.08.2019).

A. Michnik, J. Tischner, J. Żakowski, Między Panem a Plebanem, p. 11.

Ibidem.

“Kościół pod wezwaniem Bolesława Bieruta. Kim byli księża-patrioci?” http://www.polskatimes.pl/artykul/3705314,kosciol-pod-wezwaniem-boleslawa-bieruta-kim-byliksiezapatrioci-nasza-historia,id,t.html (accessed: 20.08. 2019).

Ibidem.

A. Michnik, J. Tischner, J. Żakowski, Między Panem a Plebanem, p. 31.

Ibidem, p. 61.

“Proces kurii krakowskiej – (ksiądz Lelito i działacze podziemia narodowego),” https://ipn.gov.pl/pl/edukacja-1/wystawy/13676,Proces-kurii-krakowskiej-ksiadz-Lelito-i-dzialacze-podziemianarodowego.html (accessed: 20.08.2019).

J. Eisler, „Polskie miesiące” czyli kryzys(y) w PRL (Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2008), p. 20.

Ibidem, p. 24.

Ibidem, p. 26.

The square was filled with several hundred people manifesting their support for Gomułka. He gave a speech, calling for peace and arguing that Poland was a sovereign country. He also condemned the time of “errors and perversions.”

A. Michnik, J. Tischner, J. Żakowski, Między Panem a Plebanem, p. 61.

Ibidem, p. 198.

O Polskę wolną! O Polskę solidarną!, ed. W. Polak, S. Skarbińska, V. Kmiecik (Gdańsk: Tatastudio, 2011), p. 10.

“Ks. Józef Tischner. Sumienie ‘Solidarności’,” http://www.ecs.gda.pl/title,Sumienie_Solidarnosci,pid,888.html (accessed: 20.08.2019).

“31 lat temu kraj objęła wiosenna fala strajków,” http://dzieje.pl/aktualnosci/wiosenna-fala-strajkow-w-1988-r (accessed: 20.08.2019).

W. Bonowicz, Tischner, p. 404.

This question had a particularly significant ring to it, given the newly-established Catholic “Radio Maryja” in Toruń.

W. Bonowicz, Tischner, p. 561.

A. Michnik, J. Tischner, J. Żakowski, Między Panem a Plebanem, p. 560.

P. Borowiec, Czas polityczny po rewolucji. Czas w polskim dyskursie politycznym po 1989 roku (Kraków: Wydawnictwo UJ, 2013), p. 508.

A. Michnik, J. Tischner, J. Żakowski, Między Panem a Plebanem, p. 649.

P. Ricoeur, “Praca i słowo,” in: idem, Podług nadziei. Odczyty, szkice i studia, trans. S. Cichowicz et al. (Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy Pax, 1991), p. 89.

J. Tischner, Miłość niemiłowana (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Sławomira Grotomirskiego, 1993), p. 5.

Cf. Idem, Studia z filozofii świadomości (Kraków: Instytut Myśli Józefa Tischnera, 2006), pp. 303–306.

Idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1998), p. 8.

Idem, Dziennik 1944–1949. Niewielkie pomieszanie klepek (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2014), p. 180.

Idem, “Czym jest filozofia, którą uprawiam?” in: idem, Myślenie według wartości (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2000), p. 6.

Ibidem.

Ibidem.

Idem, “Ludzie z kryjówek,” in: idem, Myślenie według wartości, p. 412.

Idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 64.

Ibidem, p. 65.

Idem, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie (Paris: Éditions du Dialogue, Société d’Éditions Internationales, 1990), p. 11.

Ibidem, p. 312.

Idem, Myślenie według wartości, p. 489.

Ibidem, p. 486.

Idem, “Impresje aksjologiczne,” in: idem, Świat ludzkiej nadziei (Kraków: Wydawnictwo WAM, 1994), p. 163.

Ibidem, p. 168.

Ibidem, p. 174.

Cf. Ibidem, p. 178.

Idem, Myślenie według wartości, p. 483.

Ibidem, p. 485.

Idem, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, p. 13.

Idem, “Miłość,” in: idem, Miłość nas rozumie. Rok liturgiczny z księdzem Tischnerem (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2000), p. 26.

Idem, Miłość niemiłowana, p. 56.

Idem, “Maleńkość i jej Mocarz,” in: idem, Miłość nas rozumie, p. 171.

J. Tischner, Świat ludzkiej nadziei (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1994), p. 11, cf. p. 47.

Cf. idem, Myślenie według wartości (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2000), p. 7.

These two issues: man and God are analysed by Tischner his 37 books. In the present research paper I only refer to several of those that I consider to be the most representative of his philosophical-religious thought.

Cf. idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1998), pp. 268–290. In this context let us note two pertinent remarks: “One cannot but get the impression that Tischner investigated man, but was searching for God. He regarded man and human history as places of God’s manifestation,” in: M. Bielawski, “Teologiczne manowce Tischnera,” Znak, no. 3(550) (2001), p. 21. „Wherever [Tischner—J.J.] undertook the problem of man, he undertook the problem of God at the same time,” in: T. Gadacz, “Bóg w filozofii Tischnera,” Znak, no. 3(550) (2001), p. 25; cf. T. Gadacz, “Chrześcijańskie korzenie Tischnerowskiej filozofii człowieka,” Znak, no. 5(588) (2004), pp. 77–87.

Cf. K. Tarnowski, “Filozof dojrzałej wiary,” Znak, no. 3(550) (2001), p. 39.

Cf. Pytając o człowieka. Myśl filozoficzna Józefa Tischnera, ed. W. Zuziak (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak; Wydział Filozoficzny Papieskiej Akademii Teologicznej w Krakowie, 2001); “Warsztaty młodych,” Logos i Ethos, no. 1–2 (2002), pp. 4–88.

Cf. Między potępieniem a zbawieniem. Myślenie religijne ks. Józefa Tischnera, ed. J. Jagiełło, W. Zuziak (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak; Wydział Filozoficzny Papieskiej Akademii Teologicznej w Krakowie, 2004), p. 276.

Cf. „Bądź wolność twoja”. Józefa Tischnera refleksja nad życiem publicznym, ed. J. Jagiełło, W. Zuziak (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak; Wydział Filozoficzny Papieskiej Akademii Teologicznej w Krakowie, 2005), p. 189.

Cf. J. Tischner, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 47ff.

Idem, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PAT, 1991), p. 109.

Idem, Myślenie według wartości, p. 478.

Ibidem, p. 480; cf. p. 479.

Idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 7.

Ibidem, p. 8.

M. Heidegger, Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens (Pfullingen: Günther Neske Verlag, 1954), p. 7.

J. Tischner, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 8.

Idem, Myślenie według wartości, p. 481.

Ibidem. Tischner is obviously alluding to the title of one of the major works of Herbert Marcuse, a German philosopher associated with the Frankfurt School. See H. Marcuse, Der eindimensionale Mensch (Neuwied–Berlin: Luchterhand, 1964). On account of this book, Marcuse has frequently been called a spiritual father of the so-called Protests of 1968 in the West. However, Tischner’s allusion by no means implies that the thinkers share the same perception of man’s one-dimensionality.

J. Tischner, “Etyka wartości i nadziei,” in: D. von Hildebrand, J.A. Kłoczowski, J. Paściak, J. Tischner, Wobec wartości (Poznań: W Drodze, 1984), p. 57.

J. Tischner, Myślenie według wartości, p. 369.

Cf. idem, “Etyka wartości i nadziei,” p. 56.

Ibidem, p. 57.

Ibidem, p. 56.

Ibidem, p. 58, cf. p. 67.

Ibidem, p. 67.

Cf. idem, Etyka a historia. Wykłady (Kraków: Instytut Myśli Józefa Tischnera, 2008), p. 341.

Ibidem, p. 342.

Ibidem, p. 341.

Cf. idem, Świat ludzkiej nadziei, pp. 183–200.

D. von Hildebrand, J.A. Kłoczowski, J. Paściak, J. Tischner, Wobec wartości, p. 57.

At this point it is worth noting Aleksander Bobko’s inspiring comment on the metaphor of song which Tischner used to present his axiology-underpinned concept of man: “This metaphor contains discussion between the classical (substantialist) and the contemporary (existential) concept of man. … Although the figurativeness of melody appears to be closer to the existential concept of man, Tischner also stresses the role of the ‘musical score,’ which is at least an ersatz for substantiality. Values constitute this substantialist ‘musical score’ that man uses to ‘play’ himself;” A. Bobko, “Poszukiwanie prawdy o człowieku,” Znak, no. 3(550) (2001), p. 57ff and idem, “Józefa Tischnera myślenie o człowieku,” in: J. Tischner, O człowieku. Wybór pism filozoficznych (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 2003), p. XIXff.

D. von Hildebrand, J.A. Kłoczowski, J. Paściak, J. Tischner, Wobec wartości, p. 58.

Cf. J. Tischner, “Ja transcendentalne w filozofii Edmunda Husserla” (1962), in: idem, Studia z filozofii świadomości (Kraków: Instytut Myśli Józefa Tischnera, 2006), pp. 1–127.

Idem, “Fenomenologia świadomości egotycznej” (1971), in: idem, Studia z filozofii świadomości, p. 401.

Ibidem, p. 410.

Idem, Świat ludzkiej nadziei, p. 122ff; cf. also pp. 162–182, where in his axiological impressions Tischner devotes all his attention to the concept of the axiological “I,” from which all other concepts of “I” can be derived, including the concept of the transcendental “I.”

Cf. idem, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów, p. 122.

Ibidem, p. 123. It is to be noted that Tischner owes the exposition of the difference between good and a value above all to Scheler. He mentions this in his lectures delivered in Krakow in the spring semester of 1983, in which he follows Scheler in stating: “A good is a thing defined by a value. If we have some thing which becomes a carrier of a value, we call this thing a good,” in: idem, Etyka a historia. Wykłady, p. 342ff.

Cf. idem, “Etyka wartości i nadziei,” p. 91.

Cf. ibidem, p. 59; Idem, Myślenie według wartości, p. 367.

Idem, “Etyka wartości i nadziei,” p. 59.

Cf. idem, Myślenie według wartości, p. 370.

Ibidem. In this context, let us once again note Aleksander Bobko’s comment in which he stresses that according to Tischner man “creates himself like an artist playing a melody. The truth about man is therefore a peculiar work of art, and by extension, as a creative act, is ultimately subject to aesthetic evaluation,” in: A. Bobko, “Józefa Tischnera myślenie o człowieku,” p. XXV.

J. Tischner, “Etyka wartości i nadziei,” p. 88.

Cf. idem, Myślenie według wartości, p. 482; also pp. 363, 485, 491.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 363–366.

I address these issues in the research paper “Ingarden – Tischner. Od ontologii do agatologii odpowiedzialności,” in Dziedzictwo etyki współczesnej. Aksjologia i etyka Romana Ingardena i jego uczniów. Studia i rozprawy, ed. P. Duchliński (Kraków: Akademia Ignatianum; Wydawnictwo WAM, 2015), pp. 241–267.

J. Tischner, “Etyka wartości i nadziei,” p. 88.

Cf. ibidem and I. Kant, Uzasadnienie metafizyki moralności, trans. M. Wartenberg (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1953), p. 62.

J. Tischner, “Etyka wartości i nadziei,” p. 89.

Cf. idem, Myślenie według wartości, p. 491.

Idem, “Etyka wartości i nadziei,” p. 90.

Cf. ibidem, p. 60.

Ibidem, p. 89.

I address these issues at length in the research paper “Współczesna filozofia nadziei – od Blocha do Tischnera,” in Filozofia Boga, part 1: Poszukiwanie Boga, ed. S. Janeczek, A. Starościc (Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 2017), pp. 331–356. In the present description of the experience of hope in Tischner’s philosophy I refer to this research paper.

Worthy of note is the fact that the book Świat ludzkiej nadziei was first published in 1975.

Cf. J. Tischner, “Adwentowe krajobrazy,” in: idem, Miłość nas rozumie. Rok liturgiczny z księdzem Tischnerem (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2000), pp. 7–26.

J. Tischner, J. Żakowski, Tischner czyta Katechizm (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1997), p. 94.

Cf. J. Tischner, “Podstawy etyki – jak żyć?” in: J. Bukowski, J. Tischner, Podstawy wiary – w co wierzę? Podstawy etyki – jak żyć? (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Wrocławskiej Księgarni Archidiecezjalnej, 1982), p. 206. Cf. J. Tischner, J. Żakowski, Tischner czyta Katechizm, p. 94.

J. Tischner, J. Żakowski, Tischner czyta Katechizm, p. 94. I will address this theme below, when I pay attention to the issue of the so-called essential hope.

This observation of Tischner’s refers to both the axiological and agathological perspective on hope. However, it is to be noted that for “Tischner of the late period” it is not only a value that is the main point of reference in the analysis of hope, but above all good, which—as we already know—Tischner does not identify with a value. This is because good is one of the transcendentals which in the Tischnerian philosophy of drama can be construed as the metaphysical principle of reality.

J. Tischner, Świat ludzkiej nadziei, p. 297.

Ibidem, p. 298.

Cf. ibidem, p. 97.

Ibidem, p. 10; cf. idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 241.

Cf. idem, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów, p. 123.

Cf. idem, “Etyka wartości i nadziei,” p. 88.

Cf. J. Jagiełło, “Tischner wobec wartości,” in Człowiek wobec wartości, ed. J. Jagiełło, W. Zuziak (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2006), p. 13.

Cf. J. Tischner, “Etyka wartości i nadziei,” p. 89.

Cf. idem, Miłość nas rozumie, p. 80ff.

Idem, Świat ludzkiej nadziei, p. 10.

Cf. idem, Polska jest Ojczyzną (Paris: Éditions du Dialogue, Société d’Éditions Internationales, 1985), p. 173, and idem, Miłość nas rozumie, p. 84.

Cf. idem, Polska jest Ojczyzną, p. 179, 184ff, and idem, Etyka solidarności oraz Homo sovieticus (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1992), pp. 27–35, 95–99, 108–112. Tischner’s philosophy of work is brilliantly expounded by Enrico Sperfeld in research paper Arbeit als Gespräch. Józef Tischners Ethik der Solidarność (Freiburg–München: Verlag Karl Alber, 2012).

Idem, Świat ludzkiej nadziei, p. 308.

Ibidem, p. 98; cf. p. 299, 305ff.

Ibidem, p. 100.

Cf. ibidem, p. 307.

Cf. ibidem, p. 300.

Cf. ibidem, p. 305.

J. Tischner, J. Żakowski, Tischner czyta Katechizm, pp. 89–93; cf. J. Tischner, Miłość nas rozumie, p. 79ff.

J. Tischner, “Podstawy etyki – jak żyć?” p. 205.

Cf. J. Jagiełło, “Współczesna filozofia nadziei – od Blocha do Tischnera,” pp. 332–334.

Cf. ibidem.

J. Tischner, Miłość nas rozumie, p. 82; Cf. J. Tischner, J. Żakowski, Tischner czyta Katechizm, p. 95.

Cf. J. Jagiełło, “Współczesna filozofia nadziei – od Blocha do Tischnera,” pp. 335–344.

Cf. G. Marcel, Homo viator. Wstęp do metafizyki nadziei, trans. P. Lubicz (Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy Pax, 1984), pp. 42, 62ff, and J. Tischner, Myślenie według wartości, p. 161.

J. Tischner, Świat ludzkiej nadziei, p. 100.

Cf. idem, Miłość nas rozumie, p. 81, and idem, Myślenie według wartości, p. 161.

J. Tischner, J. Żakowski, Tischner czyta Katechizm, p. 92.

Ibidem, p. 94.

Ibidem.

Cf. J. Tischner, Myślenie według wartości, p. 163.

Idem, Świat ludzkiej nadziei, p. 306.

Ibidem, p. 101. Cf. Idem, Miłość nas rozumie, p. 85.

Cf. P. Ricoeur, Podług nadziei. Odczyty, szkice, studia, trans. S. Cichowicz et al. (Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy Pax, 1991), p. 194, and J. Tischner, Świat ludzkiej nadziei, op. cit., pp. 68, 304.

Cf. J. Tischner, Świat ludzkiej nadziei, pp. 94 n., 97.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 300, 303.

Cf. idem, Miłość nas rozumie, p. 84.

Cf. ibidem, p. 83.

Ibidem, p. 84.

Cf. idem, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów, pp. 104–109, and idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, pp. 235–242.

A. Kępiński, Psychopatie (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Lekarskie PZWL, 1977).

J. Tischner, Myślenie według wartości, p. 413.

Ibidem, p. 414.

Ibidem, p. 412.

Cf. ibidem, p. 492.

Ibidem, p. 481ff.

Ibidem, p. 414.

Cf. idem, “Etyka wartości i nadziei,” p. 89.

Cf. ibidem and idem, “Podstawy etyki – jak żyć?” p. 206; J. Tischner, J. Żakowski, Tischner czyta Katechizm, p. 94; J. Tischner, Świat ludzkiej nadziei, p. 308, and idem, Myślenie według wartości, p. 161.

S. Kierkegaard, Bojaźń i drżenie. Choroba na śmierć, trans. J. Iwaszkiewicz (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1982), p. 151.

Cf. J. Jagiełło, Tischner wobec wartości, pp. 14–16.

Cf. J. Tischner, “Etyka wartości i nadziei,” p. 90.

Cf. ibidem.

Cf. ibidem, p. 91. In the “principle of discoverability” Tischner discerns the key to interhuman encounters governed by hope, which in turn is moulded by values. In his opinion, the truth about this thoroughly ethical principle is subject to aesthetic evaluation. Ethics is the “art of discovery,” the “art of apt exposition.” Cf. J. Tischner, Myślenie według wartości, pp. 366ff, 371.

Idem, “Etyka wartości i nadziei,” p. 88.

Ibidem, p. 90.

Ibidem.

Ibidem.

Idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 282. Cf. in its entirety, pp. 281–283.

Idem, Etyka wartości i nadziei, p. 91. A particularly insightful analysis of the relevance of hope for overcoming despair can be found in the study by K. Tarnowski entitled “Drogi potępienia, drogi zbawienia,” in Między potępieniem a zbawieniem, pp. 19–38.

Cf. J. Tischner, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, p. 256ff.

Idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 190.

Cf. ibidem, p. 191.

Ibidem, p. 192.

Ibidem, pp. 194–195.

Ibidem, p. 209. Cf. G. Marcel, Homo viator, pp. 42, 62.

Cf. J. Tischner, Współczesna filozofia ludzkiego dramatu (Kraków: Instytut Myśli Józefa Tischnera, 2012), p. V. It is noteworthy that some lectures on this philosophy were published for internal use in the form of student’s little course books. Cf. for instance: idem, Filozofia człowieka, Booklet I: Od ontologii do metafizyki człowieka (Kraków: Wydział Filozofii Papieskiej Akademii Teologicznej w Krakowie, 1986) (pages 80); idem, Dramat człowieka (Kraków: Wydział Filozofii Papieskiej Akademii Teologicznej w Krakowie, 1987) (pages 88). A particularly elaborate, well-known and highly innovative form of these lectures is Józef Tischner’s above-mentioned manual entitled Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów (pages 129).

J. Tischner, Das menschliche Drama. Phämomenologische Studien zur Philosohie des Dramas, trans. S. Dzida (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1989), p. 280.

Idem, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, p. 273. This is the issue I will be referring to in the present research paper. Also, it should be noted that its Polish version was prepared for print as early as October 1986. However, this treatise was first published in Poland only at the end of the 1990s. Cf. idem, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, Kraków 1998, p. 319. Since then the book has been several times re-released by the “Znak” Publishing House.

Cf. Oby wszyscy tak milczeli o Bogu! Z ks. Józefem Tischnerem rozmawia Anna Karoń-Ostrowska (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2015), p. 33ff.

Ibidem, p. 11. It is noteworthy that a thorough explanation of the word “drama,” which is of such great importance for Tischner as a bridge leading to things, is provided by Dobrosław Kot in his habilitation dissertation: Myślenie dramatyczne (Kraków: Copernicus Center Press, 2016), p. 39ff.

Oby wszyscy tak milczeli o Bogu! p. 34ff.

Cf. J. Tischner, Współczesna filozofia ludzkiego dramatu. (Passim).

Cf. idem, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów, p. 68.

Cf. ibidem, p. 96ff. I address these issues at length in: J. Jagiełło, Niedokończony spór o antropologię filozoficzną (Heidegger – Plessner) (Warszawa: IFiS PAN, 2011), pp. 133–149.

Cf. J. Tischner, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów, p. 23.

Idem, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, p. 14.

Ibidem, p. 11. It is noteworthy that the phrase “illuminating human existence” is first to be encountered in K. Jaspers, then in M. Heidegger and H. Plessner.

Cf. J. Tischner, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów, p. 11ff.

Idem, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, p. 13.

Cf. idem, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów, p. 9.

Ibidem.

Cf. Tischner’s Spór o istnienie człowieka.

“Spór o istnienie człowieka. Z księdzem profesorem Józefem Tischnerem rozmawia Tadeusz Gadacz,” Nowe Książki, no. 3(50) (1998), p. 6.

Cf. J. Tischner, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, pp. 11, 13.

Ibidem, p. 12.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, pp. 12ff, 15–17.

Cf. ibidem, p. 18.

F. Ebner, Słowo i realności duchowe. Fragmenty pneumatologiczne, trans. K. Skorulski (Warszawa: IFiS PAN, 2006), p. 7. Cf. on this subject: J. Jagiełło, Vom ethischen Idealismus zum kritischen Sprachdenken. Ferdinand Ebners Erneuerung des Seinsverständnisses (München: Don Bosco Verlag, 1997), pp. 164–193.

J. Tischner, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, p. 13.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 14, 257.

Cf. ibidem, p. 22.

Ibidem, p. 13.

Ibidem, p. 14.

Idem, Myślenie według wartości, p. 486.

Ibidem, p. 486.

Ibidem, p. 482ff.

Ibidem, p. 487.

Ibidem, p. 488.

Spotkanie. Z ks. Józefem Tischnerem rozmawia Anna Karoń-Ostrowska, p. 130.

J. Tischner, Myślenie według wartości, p. 488.

Spotkanie. Z ks. Józefem Tischnerem rozmawia Anna Karoń-Ostrowska, p. 129. We will address the issues concerned with amazement and rebellion in Tischner’s philosophy once again in the context of the metaphor of the face and an encounter with the “Other” within the agathological horizon.

Cf. M. Heidegger, Wegmarken (1919–1961). (Gesamtausgabe, Band 9), ed. F.-W. von Herrmann (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2004), p. 365.

Spotkanie. Z ks. Józefem Tischnerem rozmawia Anna Karoń-Ostrowska, p. 132.

J. Tischner, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, p. 53.

In this context it is worth taking note of the remark by Tadeusz Gadacz, one of Józef Tischner’s most prominent pupils, who argues that “it is not agathology, but an encounter that is primaeval;” T Gadacz, Historia filozofii XX wieku. Nurty, vol. 2: Neokantyzm. Filozofia egzystencji. Filozofia dialogu (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2009), p. 637. I hold the view that there is no contradiction between Gadacz’s statement and my statements in the main text. This is because, according to Tischner, there is a special correlation between agathology and an encounter. It is first and foremost thinking in good and evil that creates an encounter, which always occurs only within the agathological horizon, and is its gift, while an encounter enables exposition of an agathological experience—it is a work of an encounter; Cf. J. Tischner, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, p. 53.

Ibidem.

Cf. J. Tischner, Spór o istnienie człowieka (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1998).

Cf. J. Tischner, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, 57. This issue is thoroughly addressed by Karol Tarnowski in his two research papers: Drogi potępienia, drogi zbawienia, pp. 19–38, and “Dialogiczna metafizyka Józefa Tischnera,” in Spory o naturę człowieka, ed. J. Jagiełło (Kielce: Wydawnictwo Jedność, 2015), pp. 217–228.

I will return to this issue in the context of the validation of the problem of grace in the philosophical science of man, as promoted by Tischner.

J. Tischner, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, p. 67.

Ibidem, p. 69.

Ibidem, p. 70.

Cf. ibidem, p. 57.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, p. 70.

Cf. ibidem, p. 91.

Cf. idem, Zarys filozofii dramatu dla duszpasterzy i artystów, p. 15.

Idem, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, p. 91.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, p. 55.

Cf. ibidem, p. 179–193.

So far, of Tischner’s oeuvre his philosophy of social life has been best-known in the world; it is symbolised by Etyka Solidarności (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1982), which has been published in several languages. Incorporated into this work, Tischner’s concept of work as dialogue and interhuman communication fully corresponds to the reflections on the dramatic dimension of the sphere of human work, which are presented in Filozofia dramatu.

Idem, Filozofia dramatu, p. 55.

Ibidem, p. 53ff.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 193–203.

A reliable study of these issues is provided by above all four Polish authors: A. Bobko, Myślenie wobec zła. Polityczny i religijny wymiar myślenia w filozofii Kanta i Tischnera (Kraków–Rzeszów: Instytut Myśli Józefa Tischnera, 2007); Z. Dymarski, Dwugłos o złu. Ze studiów nad myślą Leszka Kołakowskiego i Józefa Tischnera (Gdańsk: Słowo/obraz/terytoria, 2009); T. Gadacz, Filozofia Boga w XX wieku. Od Lavelle’a do Tischnera (Kraków: Wydawnictwo WAM, 2007); I. Marszałek, Józef Tischner i filozoficzne koncepcje zła. Czy zło jest w nas czy między nami? (Kraków: Wydawnictwo WAM, 2014).

Cf. J. Tischner, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, p. 151ff.

Idem, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów, p. 99.

Ibidem, p. 17.

Cf. idem, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, p. 109.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 103, 139.

Cf. ibidem, p. 144ff.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 156, 247.

Ibidem, p.179.

Cf. Ibidem, pp. 207–221.

Ibidem, p. 205.

Idem, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów, p. 122.

Cf. ibidem, p. 155.

Ibidem, p. 156.

Cf. ibidem, p. 155.

Ibidem, p. 174.

Ibidem, p. 156.

Ibidem, p. 123.

Ibidem, p. 251.

Ibidem, p. 217.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 252–256.

Ibidem, p. 57ff.

Idem, Myślenie według wartości, p. 486.

Idem, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, p. 140.

Ibidem, p. 156.

Idem, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów, p. 102.

Cf. idem, Myślenie według wartości, p. 486.

Cf. ibidem, p. 486.

Cf. idem, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, p. 54ff.

  Ibidem, p. 58.

  Ibidem, p. 257.

  Ibidem.

  Cf. ibidem, p. 22.

Spotkanie. Z ks. Józefem Tischnerem rozmawia Anna Karoń-Ostrowska, p. 122.

J. Tischner, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, p. 257.

Cf. M. Scheler, “Stanowisko człowieka w kosmosie,” in: idem, Pisma z antropologii filozoficznej i teorii wiedzy, trans. S. Czerniak, A. Węgrzecki (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1987), p. 46ff.

Cf. J. Życiński, “Humanizm tragiczny jako następstwo kulturowej śmierci Boga,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 50, no. 2 (2002), p. 5.

As cited in: B. Szymańska, Co to jest strukturalizm? (Kraków: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1980), p. 47.

J. Tischner, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 8.

Ibidem.

Ibidem.

Cf. ibidem, p. 280.

Ibidem, p. 8.

Ibidem, p. 326.

Ibidem, p. 325.

Ibidem, p. 16.

  Ibidem, p. 17.

  Ibidem, p. 24.

  Ibidem, p. 21.

Cf. Ibidem, pp. 19, 22.

Ibidem, p. 35.

Ibidem, p. 31.

Ibidem, p. 38.

Ibidem, p. 37.

Ibidem, p. 56.

Ibidem, p. 38.

Cf. ibidem, p. 40ff.

Cf. ibidem, p. 18.

Cf. ibidem, p. 47ff.

Ibidem, p. 56ff. Tischner finds the lives of the characters in Witold Gombrowicz’s play entitled Ślub to be a fitting depiction of killing of one’s inner human, cf. W. Gombrowicz, Ślub, Warszawa 1957, pp. 57–63.

Cf. J. Tischner, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 280.

Ibidem, p. 64ff.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 278, 280.

Ibidem, p. 57.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 43, 64, 108ff.

Ibidem, p. 57.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 235–240.

Ibidem, p. 241.

Ibidem, p. 280.

Ibidem, p. 266.

Ibidem, p. 282.

Ibidem, p. 290.

Ibidem, p. 65.

Ibidem, p. 220.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, pp. 287, 317.

Cf. ibidem, p. 317.

Idem, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów, p. 101.

Idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 129.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 127–164.

Ibidem, p. 164.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 129–131.

Ibidem, p. 132.

Cf. idem, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów, p. 129.

Idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 289ff.

Ibidem, p. 287.

Ibidem, p. 209.

Cf. ibidem.

Cf. ibidem, p. 240ff.

Cf. ibidem, p. 212.

Ibidem, p. 176.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 280, 311ff.

Ibidem, p. 200.

Cf. ibidem, p. 130.

Cf. ibidem, p. 254.

Ibidem, pp. 286–287.

Cf. Ibidem, p. 317.

Idem, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów, p. 128; Cf. idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 254.

Idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 298, cf. p. 311.

Ibidem, p. 299.

Idem, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów, p. 129.

Cf. idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 334.

Idem, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów, p. 19; cf. Idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 164.

Idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, pp. 270, 272.

Cf. ibidem, p. 345.

Idem, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów, p. 129.

Cf. idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 342.

Ibidem, p. 343.

Idem, Ksiądz na manowcach (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1999), p. 89.

Idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 342.

Ibidem, p. 276.

Cf. idem, Filozofia dramatu. Wprowadzenie, p. 257.

Cf. idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 214.

Cf. ibidem, p. 346.

Ibidem, p. 342.

Idem, Ksiądz na manowcach, p. 90.

Idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 214ff.

Cf. ibidem, p. 8.

Cf. J. Galarowicz, “Dlaczego oddalam się od tomizmu?” in Zawierzyć człowiekowi. Księdzu Józefowi Tischnerowi na sześćdziesiąte urodziny, ed. W. Stróżewski (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1991), p. 501.

Cf. M. Bielawski, “Teologiczne manowce Tischnera,” Znak, no. 3(550) (2001), p. 20.

Z. Stawrowski, “Głos w ankiecie: ‘Tischnerowskie spojrzenia. Głosy uczniów i przyjaciół’,” Znak, no. 5(558) (2004), p. 20.

Cf. J. Tischner, “Opisując sytuację polskiej wiary,” in: idem, Idąc przez puste błonia (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2005), pp. 119–134.

Idem, “Wokół spraw wiary i rozumu,” in Filozofować w kontekście nauki, ed. M. Heller, A. Michalik, J. Życiński (Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1987), p. 45.

Cf. K. Tarnowski, “Filozof dojrzałej wiary,” Znak, no. 3(550) (2001), p. 39.

Cf. idem, “Głos w dyskusji: ‘Wokół myślenia religijnego’,” Znak, no. 5(588) (2004), p. 52.

Cf. J. Jagiełło, “Głos w dyskusji: ‘Tischnerowskie spojrzenia. Głosy uczniów i przyjaciół’,” Znak, no. 5(588) (2004), p. 36.

Besides the disputes over the concept of man, which I discuss here, Tischner also engaged in other, internal philosophical disputes, among which the following should be regarded as the most important: a dispute with E. Husserl over “the axiological I,” a dispute with E. Lévinas over grace, and a dispute with K. Wojtyła over the conception of the human person.

Other important objects of Tischner’s dispute with Marxism were work and labor exploitation. Tischner noted that the Marxist protest against labor exploitation was inspired by Christian values. The difference between Christianity and Marxism that led to Tischner’s criticism of the latter “arose only when Marxism moved from the plane of ideals to the plane of execution.” J. Tischner, “Spór o kształt ludzkiej nadziei,” in: idem, Filozofia chrześcijańska w dialogu, collective works (Kraków: Studium Myśli Chrześcijańskiej przy Duszpasterstwie Akademickim w Krakowie, 1981), p. 43. Not only did Tischner assess the Polish variant of labour crisis. See J. Tischner, “Polski kryzys pracy,” in Filozofia współczesna, ed. J. Tischner (Kraków: Instytut Teologiczny Księży Misjonarzy, 1989), pp. 302–311. He also suggested remedies for the crisis in the form of revival of the ethos of work based on the Christian conception thereof and restoration of the spiritual dignity of work. Cf. J. Tischner, “Praca i słowo o pracy,” in Filozofia współczesna, pp. 312–319).

J. Tischner, Filozofia chrześcijańska w dialogu z marksizmem (do użytku wewnętrznego) (Kraków: Instytut Filozofii przy Papieskim Wydziale Teologicznym, 1979), p. 13.

Cf. idem, “Marksizm a teoria osobowości,” in Filozofia współczesna, p. 261.

Cf. S. Konstańczak, “Józefa Tischnera krytyka marksizmu,” in Tischner – człowiek w horyzoncie nadziei, ed. E. Struzik (Katowice: WW Oficyna Wydawnicza, 2016), pp. 93–94.

Cf. J. Tischner, “Spór o kształt ludzkiej nadziei,” p. 40.

Cf. idem, “Dialog z filozofią marksistowską,” in: idem, Filozofia chrześcijańska w dialogu, p. 25.

Cf. ibidem, p. 26.

Cf. ibidem, p. 28.

Cf. ibidem, p. 39.

Cf. idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1998), pp. 214–215.

Cf. idem, Filozofia chrześcijańska w dialogu z marksizmem, pp. 11–12.

Cf. idem, “Schyłek chrześcijaństwa tomistycznego,” Znak, no. 1(187) (1970), pp. 1–20.

The dispute, which was mainly conducted over the pages of journals and newspapers such as Znak, Tygodnik Powszechny and Życie i Myśl, involved philosophers and theologians affiliated with the Catholic University of Lublin and the Academy of Catholic Theology milieus: S. Swieżawski, M.A. Krąpiec, W. Chudy, A.B. Stępień, A. Półtawski, B. Demboróg, R. Waszkinel, K. Krajewski, T. Ślipko, M. Gogacz, S. Grygiel, J. Salij. Tischner’s texts that engaged in polemics with Thomism are collected in: J. Tischner, Myślenie według wartości, 4th ed. (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2002), pp. 201–357. This dispute, including an extensive bibliography, is discussed by Z. Dymarski, “Debata księdza Józefa Tischnera ze szkołą lubelską,” Logos i Ethos, no. 1 (1998), pp. 235–245.

As cited in: J. Galarowicz, Ks. Józef Tischner (Kraków: Petrus, 2013), p. 53.

Cf. Oby wszyscy tak milczeli o Bogu! Z Ks. Józefem Tischnerem rozmawia Anna Karoń-Ostrowska, Kraków 2015, pp. 134, 144.

J. Tischner, “Wokół spraw wiary i rozumu,” p. 44.

Cf. Idem, “Uprawiam filozofię dobra,” in Rozmowy o filozofii, ed. A. Zieliński, M. Bagiński, J. Wojtysiak (Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1996), p. 256.

Cf. A. Bobko, “Józefa Tischnera myślenie o człowieku,” in: J. Tischner, O człowieku. Wybór pism filozoficznych (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 2003), p. XVI.

Cf. J. Tischner, Spór istnienie człowieka, pp. 139–147.

Cf. idem, “Dialog z filozofią marksistowską,” in Filozofia chrześcijańska w dialogu, collective work (Kraków: Studium Myśli Chrześcijańskiej przy Duszpasterstwie Akademickim w Krakowie, 1981), p. 39c.

Cf. T. Gadacz, “Chrześcijańskie korzenie Tischnerowskiej filozofii człowieka,” Znak, no. 5(588) (2004), pp. 83–84.

Cf. J. Tischner, “Między samoudręką a trwogą,” in: idem, Ksiądz na manowcach (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1999), pp. 171–179.

Cf. idem, “Homo sovieticus,” in: idem, Etyka solidarności oraz Homo sovieticus (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1992), pp. 131–132.

Cf. A. Bobko, “Józefa Tischnera myślenie o człowieku,” p. XXXIX.

Cf. J. Tischner, Filozofia dramatu (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1999), pp. 117–119.

Cf. idem, “Opisując sytuację polskiej wiary,” p. 120.

Cf. M. Bielawski, “Teologiczne manowce Tischnera,” Znak, no. 3(550) (2001), p. 14.

The problem of separating Tischner as a personage from his thought was addressed by Jacek Filek. See J. Filek, “Głos w ankiecie: ‘Tischnerowskie spojrzenia. Głosy uczniów i przyjaciół’,” Znak, no 5 (588) (2004), pp. 21–22.

Cf. J. Galarowicz, Ks. Józef Tischner (Kraków: Petrus, 2013), pp. 28–30.

These conferences have been recorded in the form of a two-volume publication: Rozmowy w Castel Gandolfo, vol. 1–2, ed. K. Michalski, W. Bonowicz (Warszawa–Kraków: Centrum Myśli Jana Pawła II; Wydawnictwo Znak, 2010).

Ethik der Solidarität. Prinzipien einer Hoffnung [s.t.] (Graz–Wien–Köln: Verlag Styria, 1982); Éthique de Solidarité, trans. K. Jocz (Limoges: Librairie Adolphe Ardant et Critérion, 1982); The Spirit of Solidarity, trans. M.B. Zaleski, B. Fiore (San Francisco: Harper & Rowe, 1984); Ética de la solidaridad, trans. M.J. Rodríguez Fierro (Madrid: Ediciones Encuentro, 1983).

Cf. Das menschliche Drama. Phämomenologische Studien zur Philosohie des Dramas, trans. S. Dzida (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1989); Filozofia ludskiej dramy, trans. J. Matyas (Bratislava: Vydavatelstvo Serafin, 2007); La philosophie du drame, trans. M. Laurent (Paris: Cerf, 2012); Der Streit um die Existenz des Menschen, trans. S. Huber (Darmstadt: Insel Verlag, 2010); Der unmögliche Dialog: Christentum u. Marxismus in Polen, trans. T. Mechtenberg (Graz–Wien–Köln: Verlag Styria, 1982); Marxism and Christianity: the quarrel and the dialogue in Poland, trans. M.B. Zaleski, B. Fiore (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1987); The Philosophy of Person: Solidarity and Cultural Creativity (Washington: Paideia Press: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1994) (co-authored by J. Życiński and G.F. McLean).

Cf. K. Tarnowski, “Myślenie według wartości Józefa Tischnera,” in: idem, Wiara i myślenie (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1999), p. 252.

Cf. J. Tischner, “Rozum poszukuje siebie,” in: idem, Ksiądz na manowcach (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1999), p. 224.

Cf. idem, “Świadectwo heroicznemu myśleniu,” in: idem, Myślenie według wartości, 4th ed. (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2002), p. 438.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 443–446.

Cf. idem, “Myślenie religijne,” in: idem, Myślenie według wartości, pp. 346–347.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 347–348.

Cf. idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1998), p. 220.

Cf. ibidem, p. 392.

A. Karoń-Ostrowska, “Głos w ankiecie: ‘Tischnerowskie spojrzenia. Głosy uczniów i przyjaciół’,” Znak, no. 5(588) (2004), p. 24. Tischner admits that he is first and foremost interested to know how structured man needs to be in order to be able to participate in the drama; see Oby wszyscy tak milczeli o Bogu! Z ks. Józefem Tischnerem rozmawia Anna Karoń-Ostrowska (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2015), pp. 224–228.

Cf. J. Tischner, “Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów,” in: idem, Myślenie w żywiole piękna, 2nd ed. (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2013), p. 158.

Cf. idem, “Podglądanie Pana Boga,” in: idem, Ksiądz na manowcach, p. 252.

Idem, Spór o istnienie człowieka, p. 380. The question of the theological shift in Tischner’s interests is raised by Aleksander Bobko; see A. Bobko, “Józefa Tischnera myślenie o człowieku,” in: J. Tischner, O człowieku. Wybór pism filozoficznych (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 2003), pp. XXXIX–XL.

See J. Tischner, “Światło Gwiazdy Zbawienia,” in: idem, Ksiądz na manowcach, p. 282.

The existence and significance of this dimension in Tischner’s philosophy is addressed by Adam Szostkiewicz; see A. Szostkiewicz, “Głos w debacie: ‘Co powiedziałby nam dzisiaj Tischner?’,” in: W. Bereś, A. Więcek, Tischner. Życie w opowieściach (Warszawa: Świat Książki, 2008), pp. 282–283.

Oby wszyscy tak milczeli o Bogu!, pp. 250–251.

Cf. J. Tischner, “Świadectwo heroicznemu myśleniu,” in: idem, Myślenie według wartości, pp. 446–448.

Cf. idem, Zarys filozofii człowieka dla duszpasterzy i artystów, p. 158.

The extended version of the paper delivered during the Philosophy Week at the Catholic University of Lublin in February 1978.

M. Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” in Basic Writings, trans. D.F. Krell (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993), p. 251.

Cf. H. Kuhn, Das Sein und das Gute (München: Kösel Verlag, 1962).

I. Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 7.

E. Lévinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trans. A. Lingis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1979), p. 78.

G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 19.

Cf. M. Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” in Basic Writings, trans. D.F. Krell (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993), p. 260.

M. Scheler, “Zum Phänomen des Tragischen,” in Abhandlungen und Aufsätze (Leipzig: Verlag der Weissen Bücher, 1915), p. 283 [Translation—Ł.M.].

Ibidem, p. 285 [Translation—Ł.M.].

G.W.F. Hegel, Aesthetics. Lectures on Fine Art, vol. 2, trans. T.M. Knox (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 1208.

E. Lévinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trans. A. Lingis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979), p. 43.

Cf. J. Tischner, “Solidaryzacja i problem ewolucji świadomości,” in Studia z teorii poznania i filozofii wartości, ed. W. Stróżewski (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1978).

J.P. Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology, trans. H.E. Barnes (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956), pp. XLIX–l.

Ibidem, p. LXI.

Ibidem, p. LIV.

S. Kierkegaard, Either/Or, vol. 2, trans. W. Lowrie (London: Oxford University Press, 1944), pp. 178–179.

S. Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening, eds. and trans. H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong (Kierkegaard’s Writings, vol. 19) (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980), p. 18.

S. Kierkegaard, Either/Or, p. 179.

Ibidem.

 Ibidem, pp. 179–181.

G.W.F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1914), p. 18.

Meister Eckhart, “The Talks of Instruction,” in The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart, trans. M. O’C. Walshe (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2009), p. 486.

Ibidem, p. 500.

Meister Eckhart, “The Book of Divine Comfort,” in The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart, pp. 524–525.

R. Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, trans. D.A. Cress (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993), pp. 38–39; See also: J. Tischner, Świat ludzkiej nadziei (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1994), p. 130ff.

See J. Filek, Ontologizacja odpowiedzialności. Analityczne i historyczne wprowadzenie w problematykę (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Baran i Suszczyński, 1996). See also: J. Tischner, “Odpowiedzialność – powrót do źródeł,” Znak, no. 6(505) (1997), p. 119ff.

Cf. J. Tischner, Spór o istnienie człowieka (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak: 1998), pp. 181–188 (Chapter: Objawienie jako ‘uznanie’—editor’s comment).

G.W.R. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 131.