Karol

Wojtyła

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

Karol

Wojtyła

Rev. Grzegorz Hołub

Tadeusz Biesaga SDB

Jarosław Merecki SDS

Marek Kostur

Ignatianum University Press

Krakow 2019

© Copyright by Akademia Ignatianum w Krakowie, 2019

Texts by Karol Wojtyła

© Copyright by Wydawnictwo św. Stanisława BM

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

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

Project no. 0033/FIL/2016/90

Editor of the volume

Rev. Grzegorz Hołub

Reviewers

Jarosław Kupczak OP

Rev. Ryszard Moń

Supervising editor

Roman Małecki

Proofreading

Anthony Wright

Typesetting

Lesław Sławiński

Cover design

PHOTO DESIGN – Lesław Sławiński

ISBN  978-83-7614-438-2

Ignatianum University Press

ul. Kopernika 26  •  31–501 Krakow, PL

tel. +48 12 39 99 620

wydawnictwo@ignatianum.edu.pl

https://wydawnictwo.ignatianum.edu.pl/

I. KAROL WOJTYŁA: PERSON AND WORK

1. LIFE AND ACADEMIC ACTIVITY

Biography

Karol Wojtyła (John Paul II): Polish Catholic priest, Metropolitan Bishop of Krakow, 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, philosopher, theologian, educator and poet.

The son of Karol Wojtyła and Emilia Kaczorowska, he was born on May 18, 1920 in Wadowice to a middle-class family. His childhood was marked by the deaths of those closest to him. On April 13, 1929, Wojtyła’s mother died, and three years later (December 5, 1932) his older brother Edmund, who was a doctor at the City Hospital in Bielsko, died as a result of an infection from scarlet fever. Here begins the adventure of a father and military officer, with the rank of lieutenant, who brought Karol up with a Catholic and patriotic spirit.

In 1930 Karol Wojtyła began studying at the then eight-year-old Marcin Wadowita State Gymnasium for Men in Wadowice. In the course of his studies he showed a special interest in the theater. He was a valued student. He was involved in parish life, at first as an altar server and later as the member and then president of the Sodality of Our Lady at Men’s Gymnasium.

After graduating from high school in 1938, he moved to Krakow with his father, where he lived at 10 Tyniecka Street, in an apartment belonging to his mother’s family. In October 1938 he began studying Polish philology at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Jagiellonian University. However, his education was halted by the outbreak of the Second World War, and especially by the Sonderaktion Krakau pacification action directed against the community of Polish scholars.

In the years 1940–1944 he worked as a laborer, first in a quarry in Zakrzówek, then in a factory for the chemical company “Solvay” in Borek Fałęcki. The retreat for young men at St. Stanisław Kostka in the parish of Dębniki in February 1940 was an important event that affected the spiritual and intellectual development of Wojtyła. He met Jan Tyranowski there. Tyranowski was a secular person and a tailor and later became Wojtyła’s spiritual guide. Thanks to him, Wojtyła came into contact with the mysticism of Saint John of the Cross. Despite the ongoing war, he was involved in the activities of the Rhapsodic Theater, both as an actor and as a director. On February 18, 1941, his father died. He was buried in the Rakowicki Cemetery in Krakow with Wojtyła’s mother and brother.

In October 1942 he began studying philosophy and theology at the clandestine Faculty of Theology of the Jagiellonian University, organized by Archbishop Adam Stefan Sapieha. It was also a sort of seminary.

His ordination to the priesthood by Cardinal Sapieha was accepted on November 1, 1946. On November 2 he celebrated his first Holy Mass in the crypt of Saint Leonardo at Wawel Cathedral. After his ordination, he went to Rome, where he continued his studies at the International Pontifical Athenaeum Angelicum (currently the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, also known as the Angelicum).

During his studies, he made several trips for research to Belgium, France and the Netherlands. His studies in Rome enabled him to get acquainted with the representatives of Thomism, and the aforementioned research trips were with followers of Christian personalism. In 1947 he obtained a bachelor’s degree, and in 1948 he received a doctoral degree for the dissertation Doctrina de fide apud S. Joannem a Cruce [The Problems of Faith in the Works of St. John of the Cross].¹ He showed an interest in the subjective dimension of the acts of the person in this dissertation. He graduated summa cum laude.

After returning to Poland, he started working as a vicar in the parish of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Niegowić, then in the parish of Saint Florian in Krakow, where he was involved in pastoral work with university students. He organized various meetings, sightseeing tours and ventures to cultural events. He tried to combine pastoral activity with the message of values that were forbidden in the socialist regime in Poland. He did not, however, refer to political issues, but to matters of general and social importance. He also published poetry in Tygodnik Powszechny under the pseudonym ‘Andrzej Jawień’.

In 1951, under the Archbishop of Krakow, Eugeniusz Baziak, he continued his academic work at the Faculty of Theology at the Jagiellonian University, where in 1953 he defended his habilitation thesis entitled Ocena możliwości zbudowania etyki chrześcijańskiej przy założeniach systemu Maksa Schelera [Evaluation of the Possibility of Constructing a Christian Ethics on the System of Max Scheler].²

In the years 1953–1954 he was a lecturer in the clerical seminaries and the Faculty of Theology of the Jagiellonian University. From October 1954, he lectured at the Catholic University of Lublin, where he remained until 1978 as the head of the Department of Ethics. The lectures were later published as the Lublin Lectures,³ as well as in the book Love and the Responsibility⁴ regarding the moving topic of sexual ethics. However, the most important philosophical work of Wojtyła was a monograph on philosophical anthropology entitled Person and Act.⁵ 

On July 4, 1958, Karol Wojtyła was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Krakow. During this period he combined his academic work with the episcopal ministry. He supported workers in Nowa Huta and assisted them in their efforts to obtain permission from the communist authorities to build a church. In 1962 he became a member of the Polish Episcopal Commission for Education and Vicar Capitular.

He took an active part in the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). He was a supporter of the activism of the laity in the Church, especially the young, and a supporter for the liturgy to be translated into national languages. He understood the problem of opening the Church to the new media and the difficulty of dialogue with the separated churches. The Conciliar postulates were systematically introduced into the life of the Archdiocese of Krakow. He also wrote the work U podstaw odnowy. Studium o realizacji Vaticanum II [At the Foundation of Renewal. A Study on the Implementation of Vatican II].⁶

In 1964, Karol Wojtyła was appointed Archbishop Metropolitan of Krakow. After three years, on June 26, 1967, during the consistory, he was appointed a cardinal.

On October 16, 1978, at the conclave convened after the death of Pope John Paul I, Cardinal Karol Wojtyła was elected Pope, taking the name John Paul II. During his pontificate, he made 104 apostolic pilgrimages, including nine to Poland. His papal teaching included 14 encyclicals, as well as apostolic exhortations and constitutions. He was an advocate of dialogue between Christianity and other religions.

In the teachings of John Paul II, this pope from a distant country, who had experienced the tragedy of war and communism, paid special attention to the necessity of the spiritual and intellectual renewal of the people, restoring to them a sense of dignity and enabling individual development in the communities in which they lived and acted in solidarity with others.

John Paul II died on April 2, 2005. The general opinion of his sanctity was confirmed by his beatification on May 1, 2011 by Pope Benedict XVI, and then his canonization on April 27, 2014 by Pope Francis.

Sources of Karol Wojtyła’s thought

Karol Wojtyła as a scholar was, above all, a philosopher (theological threads were secondary in his thought). His philosophy focused entirely on the human being—it is described as an “adequate anthropology.”

First of all, it should be noted that Revelation and Christian tradition must have influenced his views. Being a deeply religious person, he treated the truth of faith as the most important point of reference with which he confronted his autonomous academic research. It does not seem, however, that theological issues determined the direction of his research—these were formed independently, resulting from a more primary need to understand the human condition.

As a young man, Wojtyła had already shown interest in the humanities—writing poetry, performing as an actor and choosing to study Polish philology. One may also suspect that his sensitivity to human affairs may have resulted from his difficult personal experiences, such as the deaths of his closest family members, the experience of the Second World War, and his experience of hard physical work. Later, his life experiences enriched numerous contacts with academic youth—as an answer to the practical problems of young people, Wojtyła created an original concept of ethics, which placed a special emphasis on the sexual dimension.

His experience with the mysticism of St. John of the Cross should be considered the first source of his scholarly thinking. It was an opportunity for him to extract a more philosophical, personalistic nature of man’s encounter with God, rather than as some kind of theological analysis of religious experience. Therefore, his later systematic philosophical ideas seem to have the analysis of the Spanish mystic as their source, which he treats as a peculiar phenomenology of subjective experience. Above all he sees humanism in it, about which he writes: “The proper basis for speaking about some form of humanism in the works of Saint John of the Cross we see in his assumption: he describes the supernatural experience, and experience always in some way coincides with the measure of man, man is the starting point, his living experience is included in the course of experience.”⁷ 

In turn, Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics, which confirmed his earlier, commonsensical understanding of reality, played an extremely important role in his intellectual formation. Mentioning this experience years later in an interview, he admitted: “Yes. I am not exaggerating if I say that the world in which I have lived so far in an intuitive and emotional way has since been confirmed and justified on the grounds of the deepest and the simplest ones.”⁸ This objective and realistic attitude in Wojtyła’s thinking and cognition were already present when he was an academic priest in Krakow—he said: “We assume, then, that our mind reaches the extrasensory reality and is capable of capturing its very essence. This attitude distinguishes us from all kinds of agnostics or idealists who do not extract the image of the world from the reality in question, but recognize it as the pure product of a thinking subject.”⁹ In his research, Wojtyła uses, among others, Boethius’s classic definition of a person as naturae rationalis individua substantia (an individual substance of a rational nature) or the principle operari sequitur esse, within which the real existence of a given being is the basis (condition) of its operation. The latter is, moreover, connected with his methodological principle of conducting research, which he summarized as the transition from the phenomenon to the foundation.¹⁰ But it should be emphasized that despite Wojtyła’s approval of the philosophy of being, he considered it insufficient to study the human sphere of experience. Therefore, he tried to complete it with the philosophy of consciousness. “Interpreting a human being on the basis of survival,” writes Wojtyła, “demands that the human aspect of consciousness be included in the analysis. In this way man is given to us not only as a species-specific being, but as a concrete ‘I’, as a self-experiencing subject.”¹¹ However, it should be emphasized that when he evaluated the role of consciousness, he treated it only as an aspect of human existence, and not as an independent cognitive subject.

In addition to Thomism, phenomenology was key to Wojtyła’s philosophy. But his reception of phenomenology was critical and selective. Because he based his metaphysical assumptions on Thomistic philosophy, he did not agree to a phenomenology that would lead to idealism or subjectivism. On the other hand, he valued the method of the overall phenomenological experience, thanks to which, as he wrote: “Our knowledge of the essence does not contain any indirect acts of mental abstraction, but it is based on a simple direct view, which phenomenologists describe as Wesensschau. In this act, the sensual and spiritual spheres are directed towards the subject matter.”¹² The attention he devoted to phenomenology corresponded with his interest in ethical issues—as part of his habilitation thesis, he undertook a thorough study of the ethical system of the German phenomenologist Max Scheler. Wojtyła argued against Scheler and objected to his functionalistic theory of the person, in which the person is only a unity of different kinds of data in acts of experience and not an individual substance. In addition, he pointed to the collapse in his system of the declared objectivity of the existence of values. In the opinion of the Krakow philosopher, Scheler ultimately made the ethical value dependent on its experience, thus making the values more emotional. An unacceptable consequence of such an operation is the exclusion of the action of agency. Wojtyła also indicates that the attempt to formulate the ethics of pure values results in the rejection of moral obligation.

In analyzing the ethics of Scheler, he was confronted with the ethics of Kant, for whom the morality of the human act is the fulfillment of duty for its own sake. Ultimately, Wojtyła rejects both the extreme emotional aspect and the extreme aspect of duty; he writes: “Therefore, it is not itself, that is, a real element of an ethical experience, but, according to Kant, an obligation crystallized only in a sense of respect for the law. In a real ethical experience, duty is something more than that feeling of respect for the law. But it is also not itself, that is, a real element of ethical experience, value is understood this way as in Scheler’s concept of ethical experience.”¹³ Wojtyła postulates that these two elements should be included but without falling into any exclusionary extremes. In addition, Kant’s philosophy inspired Wojtyła to deepen his analysis of human dignity. As a result, he created a personalistic norm that is a reformulated version of the Kantian imperative.¹⁴

Wojtyła developed his adequate anthropology mainly based on the above sources. It is pervaded by a special concern with showing the truth about man as a person. Among the many issues worth mentioning are: the human person as a metaphysical suppositum (existence and action of the subject), the ontological dignity of the human person (the basis of the personalistic norm), freedom as self-determination (the critical response to all kinds of treatments which make freedom absolute), interpersonal love (in the context of utilitarian criticism), the dynamism of personal agency (analysis of the act revealing the person), responsibility for action (especially in the context of love), transcendence and the integration of a person into action (as manifestations and conditions of its fulfillment), the concept of consciousness (being an aspect of human existence and not an independent subject), analysis of the act of experiencing one’s own subjectivity (connected with the theory of “what is irreducible” in a human being), analysis of the survival of value and duty (as regards the ethics of M. Scheler and I. Kant) as well as the theory of participation (in the context of building community—communio personarum).

The main works of Karol Wojtyła

The work of Karol Wojtyła includes both works in the fields of philosophy and theology as well as other literary works, including essays, dramas, and poetry. Wojtyła’s early works, although not strictly philosophical, deserve attention due to the wealth of thought they contain. Their contents reveal the nature of the young Wojtyła’s spirituality and formation of character. That is why today they can be found in a collection of poems, dramas, and sketches. The Roman Triptych¹⁵ can be a valuable complement to the study of Wojtyła’s philosophy. 

At the time of his Polish studies in Krakow, Wojtyła attended a meeting of young men. There, thanks to Jan Tyranowski, he became acquainted with the writings of St. John of the Cross. He says this about his experience: “This man was not only an expert but also a follower of St. John of the Cross. I met with the works of St. John of the Cross, I read them and tried to understand. This explains the subject of my doctoral dissertation.”¹⁶ This work was created in Rome under the patronage of Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, postulator of the title of Doctor of the Church for St. John of the Cross and researcher of the Spanish mystic’s writings.

After returning to Poland, he continued his academic work at the Jagiellonian University. His habilitation thesis was one of the last before the communist authorities liquidated the Theological Faculty of the Jagiellonian University. In his habilitation thesis Evaluation of the Possibility of Constructing a Christian Ethics on the System of Max Scheler, Wojtyła evaluated the phenomenological method in the area of research of the consciousness and the experiential sphere of the human experience. Although Scheler’s ethical system is in Wojtyła’s opinion insufficient to interpret Catholic Christian ethics, it reveals new areas that allow it to be completed. On the basis of this work, part of the Lublin Lectures and short dissertations on ethics were formed in light of the thinking of St. Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant and David Hume.

While working at the Catholic University of Lublin, Love and Responsibility¹⁷ was written as the sum of his pastoral and academic experience. This book was a response to the crisis of humanism resulting from social changes in the second half of the twentieth century. Marriage, a relationship between a woman and a man and a family that is the first community of every person’s life, is susceptible to various dangers, such as the liberalization of the sexual sphere of the human being or the development of medical procedures affecting the intimacy of the person and the person’s life from the moment of conception. This has struck, above all, young people entering family life, who lack sufficient life experience and who are susceptible to media manipulation. The ethics included in Wojtyła’s book builds an integral picture of the human person, and at the same time shows love as the only adequate answer to the dignity of the person.

The most important philosophical work of Karol Wojtyła is Person and Act.¹⁸ This book was the result of the author’s many years of study on man and morality. In it, he tried to show the human person in a complementary way, which is why he attempted to synthesize the classical philosophy of being and the modern philosophy of consciousness. This philosophy, however, is not a simple eclectic that combines these two philosophical traditions. It is an attempt to build a new personalism, exceeding the current divisions between philosophical schools, in which the meaning of a human action in the subjective dimension (agency) and metaphysical dimension (being) is shown. The Thomistic theory of will serves to explain and unveil the dynamisms taking place in the structure of human existence. “The discovery of the action of the person, its causative causality and responsibility for his actions appears to us as a phenomenological confirmation of the metaphysics of potency and the act in its detail, taking the form of a human suppositum.”¹⁹ The final element of the study is to show the relationship between the internal integrity of the subject and his ability to participate in the community of persons.

The philosophy of the author of Person and Act is an example of the formation of independent thought. It takes fundamental problems concerning God, the constitution of man, moral philosophy known from its beginnings, and searches for new ways of explaining them among classic and contemporary trends of thought. The legacy of Karol Wojtyła is also a kind of literary monument to him. Wojtyła, being a witness of great and important events for humanity, did not remain passive, but as an academic, and, as a bishop and pope, pastor of the whole community of the Church, became a champion of Christian humanism and culture and a defender of the person, in every aspect of his existence.

2. CHARACTER OF THE ERA

Introduction

An analysis of Karol Wojtyła’s philosophical views cannot be carried out without examining the philosophical context of the era in which this thinker formulated his ideas. This is basically a context defined by discussions taking place within the framework of Polish and European philosophy in the twentieth century. Of course, the ideas that Wojtyła developed in his writings repeatedly occurred in the reflections of earlier philosophers, that is, preceding the period of contemporary philosophy. However, our interest in them is necessary insofar as they were part of the debate and discussions that Wojtyła witnessed and in which he was later himself a participant.

In this chapter, we will trace the essential elements of the era in which Karol Wojtyła lived and worked. We will begin with a brief look at the historical context, then determine the nature of the philosophical trends and other cultural trends which developed at that time. Of course, we are not able to see all the conditions that shaped the concepts formulated by this philosopher. For example, we cannot say why Wojtyła was interested in these thinkers and not others. We are also unable to determine with more certainty how much his additional reading and meetings with people contributed to the formulation of his original ideas, including those contained in Person and Act. However, we generally analyze (sometimes only indicate) those contexts that are available to us cognitively and thus determine how the character of the era in which he lived impacted his philosophical activity.

Historical context

Initially, the historical context should be outlined. The life of Karol Wojtyła (prior to the period of his pontificate, that is, the years 1920–1978) was defined by three periods. In its early days, it was the time of the rebirth of the Polish state after long years of captivity (123 years), when Poland was divided between the powers of Russia, Prussia, the unified Germany and the Austrian Empire, later the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The so-called “Twenty Years” (1918–1939), despite its complexity, was marked by a spirit of renewal and a reconstruction of the Polish national heritage. This was also the time when university life was crystallizing, including the foundations of Polish philosophy. The second period, which significantly affected the intellectual personality of Wojtyła, was the period of the Second World War and the German occupation. It was characterized by, among other things, the disappearance of formal academic and cultural institutions, and at the same time their further development in informal environments, specifically the “intellectual underground.” The third period is connected with the existence of the People’s Republic of Poland. This was the time when the totalitarian system imposed by the Soviet Union sought to transform the country according to Marxist-Leninist ideology. On the part of those who opposed this system, including Christian communities, it was a period of struggle to preserve the cultural, intellectual and religious identity stemming from European history and strictly national Polish history.

The intellectual and philosophical context

The development of intellectual life in the Polish lands under the independent regime (1918) was greatly stimulated by large urban centers and the universities existing there. The leading academic centers included Lvov, Vilnius, Warsaw and Krakow. The philosophers who were important at that time were gathered in these places. In the interwar period, the philosophical context was basically designated by the so-called Lvov-Warsaw school. Traditionally, there was also a large group of Thomistic philosophers who were active. After the war, there was a strong trend in Marxist philosophy, as well as a neo-Thomistic Lublin philosophical school. In addition to these trends, other philosophers and thinkers also acted who did not identify with the above tendencies and who exerted some influence on the shape of philosophical thinking in this period.

The activity of the Lvov-Warsaw school is connected with the activity of the Polish philosopher Kazimierz Twardowski. He was a student of Franz Brentano and, as a professor at the University of Lvov, he developed his own philosophical program. In general, he promoted a minimal philosophy, which, however, did not exclude traditional issues that had been considered throughout the long history of philosophy. His program can be described as meta-philosophic, where the analytical method played an important role. Significant points in Twardowski’s philosophy—similarly to Brentano—were a clear reference to the methods of empirical science, avoiding speculative issues, the pursuit of ideological neutrality, as well as emphasizing clarity and precision in philosophical thinking.²⁰ 

These postulates led Twardowski’s students to a special interest in the issues of semiotics, logic and scientific methodology. An expansion of the Lvov scientific community supported it. As a result, a school of logic was established in Warsaw in which both philosophers and mathematicians were active. Important representatives of the Lvov-Warsaw school include such figures as Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Tadeusz Czeżowski, Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Stanisław Leśniewski, Jan Łukasiewicz, Zygmunt Zawirski and Alfred Tarski. The so-called “Catholic branch” of the Lvov-Warsaw school, located in Krakow, created such figures as Józef M. Bocheński, Jan F. Drewnowski, Jan Salamucha and Bolesław Sobociński.²¹ The period of the Second World War led to a dispersion and serious weakening of the Lvov-Warsaw school. Later, the expansion of Marxist thinking did not favor the activity of this environment and led, in effect, to its fragmentation.²² 

Another important trend of philosophy, which defined the panorama of philosophical thinking in both the pre- and post-war periods, was Thomism and neo-Thomism. In general, Thomism was always present in the didactic institutions run by the Catholic Church, such as seminaries. It was also present at the university faculties of philosophy. It is worth mentioning two philosophers who in the first half of the twentieth century promoted thinking in the spirit of St. Thomas Aquinas in Poland: Idzi Benedykt Radziszewski and Kazimierz Wais. The former contributed to the founding of the Catholic University of Lublin (1918), where he promoted, among other things, scholastic philosophy.²³ Kazimierz Wais was associated with the Faculty of Philosophy at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lvov. In addition to many other issues, he dealt with theodicy and metaphysics.²⁴ He was important to the intellectual development of Karol Wojtyła. As a young seminarian, Wojtyła was obliged to independently study Wais’s²⁵ textbook of metaphysics, which—as a student of philosophical studies—was extremely difficult. However, after two months of independent reading, the content became clear to him and, as he later said, it gave him a “new understanding of the world.” As Wojtyła confessed, “the world in which I lived so far in an intuitive and emotional way has since been confirmed and justified on the basis of the deepest and the simplest ones.”²⁶

From the Krakow environment, which was the place of the intellectual maturation of Wojtyła, it is worth mentioning the figures of Konstanty Michalski and Kazimierz Kłósak. The former was essentially a historian of medieval philosophy. He eagerly referred to the writings of Thomas Aquinas, whose Summa Theologica Michalski considered a “genius synthesis,” and his lectures were conducted in the spirit of the Thomism of the Lvov school.²⁷ Kazimierz Kłósak, however, practiced a Lvov school version of neo-Thomism. He was especially interested in the dialogue between philosophy and the natural sciences. This philosopher demonstrated that Thomist thought can be effectively incorporated into interdisciplinary discussions.²⁸

Karol Wojtyła came into contact with Thomism during his studies of the theology of spirituality at the Angelicum University in Rome. It is true that his work was concerned with the issue of faith in St. John of the Cross, but the director of this work was Reginald Marie Garrigou-Lagrange, and the Papal University itself was a special place regarding the thoughts of Thomas Aquinas. Garrigou-Lagrange himself, although he conducted his classes at the Faculty of Theology, constantly lectured on the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas as part of so-called traditional Thomism.²⁹ 

Wojtyła’s big meeting with Thomist philosophy was during the period of his work as a member of the Faculty of Philosophy at the Catholic University of Lublin (1954–1978). Here he met with the so-called Lublin philosophical school, initiated by the works of such thinkers as Stefan Swieżawski, Jerzy Kalinowski, and Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec. The emergence and activity of this community were basically combined with studies on the thought of Thomas Aquinas and the need to develop a contemporary version of classical realistic philosophy, which was later described as existential Thomism. The impact of other philosophical environments, like the Lvov-Warsaw school, the Krakow phenomenological school inspired by the work of Roman Ingarden, and in particular the school of Marxist philosophy (imposed and promoted by the authorities of the Polish People’s Republic), had little impact on its creation.³⁰ His acquaintance with the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas was very well expressed in both the anthropological and ethnical writings of Wojtyła, although he retained a specific attitude towards it.

The political changes in Poland during the Second World War resulted in, among other things, Marxist-Leninist ideology becoming the official view of state institutions, including academic circles. Therefore, at the end of the 1940s, the introduction of courses on Marxist philosophies started and, at the same time, significant restrictions were placed on philosophers who represented other philosophical trends. Their classes were completely eliminated (such as the lectures and seminars of Izydora Dąmbska, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, or Roman Ingarden) or limited in their meaning (such as for Tadeusz Czeżowski, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz or Tadeusz Kotarbiński). In their place, new names began to appear, who represented the will to recapitulate philosophy in the spirit of the writings of Karl Marx or Vladimir Lenin. They were such figures as Adam Schaff, Leszek Kołakowski, Tadeusz Kroński, Tadeusz M. Jaroszewski, Władysław Krajewski and others.³¹ 

Marxism, apart from promoting its own philosophical program, was very much focused on weakening other ways of thinking. This is evidenced by the statement by Adam Schaff from 1950, who pointed to neo-Thomism, neo-positivism and certain variants of phenomenology as manifestations of “foreign ideological influences.”³² In practice, philosophers who did not identify themselves with Marxist thought were subjected to very crude, unjust and low criticisms of their activity being “bourgeois philosophy.” Although many of them could return to their academic and publishing activity in the later period after 1956, they did not find their place in the mainstream of Polish philosophy. This was especially the case for the philosophy practiced at the Catholic University of Lublin, where Karol Wojtyła was active at the time. It was treated as confessional philosophy, alien to the communist system.

In addition to neo-Thomistic and Marxist philosophy, it is necessary to point to the phenomenological influence. The most important representative of this trend in Poland was Roman Ingarden. He gathered around him a group of students and philosophers who continued their research in the spirit of the phenomenological movement. It is worth pointing to such characters as Danuta Gierulanka, Andrzej Półtawski, Józef Tischner or Władysław Stróżewski. Ingarden developed—in contrast to the late Edmund Husserl—a realistic version of phenomenology. The basic problems that developed were ontology, the theory of cognition, aesthetics and human philosophy.³³ The anthropological and ethical issues in particular could have had some influence on the philosophy of Karol Wojtyła, who lived and created in the same Krakow milieu, and, what is more, he knew and valued Roman Ingarden.

The period of the philosophical creativity of Wojtyła was a time of interest in the theory of the person. From the subjective side, there is some justification in finding its intellectual and spiritual formation in the work of Wojtyła. He attended a classical gymnasium, where great importance was attached to literature and humanistic formation. As a result, he decided to study Polish philology at the Jagiellonian University. At that time he had a passion for the theater, especially rhapsodic drama. This favored the development of his interest in the human person, which is captured in his existential position. Later, when he undertook theological studies in Rome, he deliberated on the important sphere of human existence, which was spiritual life and the experience of faith.³⁴ 

The interest of the human person in terms of objective conditions was largely due to the tragic events that occurred in Europe in the twentieth century. Above all, it was about the two World Wars, which killed millions of human beings, and the presence of totalitarian regimes such as Communism and Nazism. They struck at the idea of the equality of all people, either by dividing society into combating classes or by glorifying one of the human races, the so-called Aryan race. The response to these abuses was a return to interest in the individual human, its specificity, dignity and rights, and in the long run, it was also an objection to the attempt to radically subordinate man to the community or to political institutions. Of course, in European philosophy, there was already a long tradition of reflecting on man. However, its revival and focus on the uniqueness of man and human rights was caused by an attempt to draw out the consequences of the two World Wars and the struggle with the reality of a totalitarian state.

One should point to a few trends of contemporary personalism which formed the context of Karol Wojtyła’s personalistic philosophy. These are positions such as moral and social personalism, developed, for example, by Emmanuel Mounier and Maurice Blondel; phenomenological-axiological personalism, developed by Max Scheler; existentialist-dialogical personalism, represented by Karl Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel, as well as Martin Buber and Emmanuel Lévinas³⁵; the evolutionary-cosmic personalism of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin; the Christian personalism of Jacques Maritain; or the personalism of the Lublin school of Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec and the personalist theologians active in this milieu: Wincenty Granat and Czesław Bartnik.³⁶

A specifically personalistic turn, in which Karol Wojtyła participated, was connected with the interest of the ideas of philosophers and other thinkers, in whom one could see a focus on the uniqueness of the human person. Undoubtedly, such philosophers include St. Augustine and Immanuel Kant, especially in the context of ethical personalism. Wojtyła’s interest in these two figures is clear and strongly imprinted in his works, especially when he analyzes the concept of love or the agency of the subject in moral action. The reform of the Catholic Church, related to the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), in which Wojtyła actively participated as the bishop of Krakow, played a significant role in the personalistic turn. Particularly important is his commitment to the creation of “The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” (Gaudium et spes). The Church’s role in securing the transcendent dimension of the human person is strongly emphasized there.³⁷ 

In the Krakow environment, one should also point to another important figure: Antoni Kępiński. He was a psychiatrist and thinker, active during the times of Wojtyła. He developed a type of humanistic (phenomenological) psychiatry, in which he attributed an important role to the person understood as a free and intelligent subject who should be guided by conscience in his life.³⁸ Thus, apart from Wojtyła and Ingarden, in the Krakow milieu, Kępiński developed a type of activity (theoretically, in the form of numerous publications, and in practice, in his practice as a psychiatrist), where the integral reflection on the human being and the person played an important role. In general, both Ingarden and Kępiński could have inspired Karol Wojtyła with their writings and activities, although there is little evidence for any closer interaction between them in the academic environment.

Conclusion

Karol Wojtyła lived and developed his philosophical activity in Poland, which was going through historical storms at the time. On the one hand, it was a difficult time, in which it seemed that many achievements of Western civilization were seriously endangered. On the other hand, this period stimulated intensive intellectual work leading to scientific, didactic and social involvement. Wojtyła, as a result of the times in which his formation occurred, can be described as a man of breakthroughs: both historical and social as well as ideological. He tried to combine various ideas and methods with “being on the border.” His original philosophical thought was something deeply rooted in European culture and philosophy, but at the same time represented an attempt to reference current events and currents of thought. The period of the life and works of Karol Wojtyła is characterized by double cultural and ideological contexts: the Polish and European context and the humanistic and Christian context. They intertwine and accompany each other and, thanks to Wojtyła’s philosophical activity, we notice their original synthesis and that they are mutually complementary.

3. PHILOSOPHICAL METHOD

An attempt to merge the philosophy of consciousness and the philosophy of being

Karol Wojtyła developed his philosophical thinking in the context of contemporary philosophical trends and Christian tradition. Thomism, Kantism, positivism, phenomenology, and existentialism were the main lines of thinking with which he came into contact. The points of departure in these philosophies or points of approach in the various trends were different. It can be said that since the Cartesian revolution, current trends have shifted the burden of philosophical thinking from metaphysics to epistemology, and in epistemology to variously understood experience, and in it to the analysis of consciousness, acts of cognition, and language or objects of data in these acts. The dynamic development in the philosophy of consciousness pushed realistic Thomistic metaphysics to the margins as unproven intellectual speculation. As a result of this influence, some of the Thomists undertook various attempts to combine Thomism with positivism, phenomenology or existentialism. Philosophers developed a phenomenology, or remained faithful to the method of phenomenological description and eidetic insight, or, like Roman Ingarden, they developed an ontology approaching realistic trends, or, like Józef Tischner, they passed from phenomenology to existentialism, in Tischner’s case working it out through his philosophical drama. This last direction of development excluded the relationship with Thomism, and repeated or strengthened his radical criticism and rejection.

Wojtyła took a different path, one can say a more ecumenical path, aimed at the reconciliation of both currents of thought. He did not reject Thomistic metaphysics from the position of the philosophy of consciousness, but he wanted the two currents to complement each other. This allowed him to critically refer to both the philosophy of consciousness and to speculative realistic metaphysics. In this way he embarked upon a rather risky path, because it was easier to close himself in one direction of thinking, and to develop, for example, various themes of phenomenology or Thomism. In the meantime, he chose the way of using what the phenomenological description brought without giving up the metaphysical foundation of the phenomena described.

From the beginning of his philosophical path, Wojtyła was fascinated by both the philosophy of St. Thomas’s existence and Max Scheler’s philosophy of consciousness. Both of these look into the phenomenological and metaphysical perspectives that are present in many of his academic works. Thus, in his doctorate about St. John of the Cross, he came into contact with the experience of faith, with a mystical experience, whose wealth takes place in the inner experiences of the person, and which must be understood and worked out in some theological and philosophical theory. He delved into the content of the mystical experience described by St. John of the Cross and, at the same time, he developed the theoretical interpretation of it using the theological and philosophical legacy of St. Thomas. At the same time, he studied Thomism at the “Angelicum” University in Rome with the eminent Thomist Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange. Thus, in his doctorate, Wojtyła moved on two levels: one describes the philosophy of consciousness, and the other explains realistic anthropology and the philosophy of being.

He was in a similar situation for a second time in his habilitation work about Max Scheler. Taking up the examination of phenomenological ethics, he moved toward what the philosophy of consciousness reveals, but in criticizing the superficiality of the phenomenological approach to the experience of morality and the perception of the person’s agency, he reached beyond the philosophy of being to Thomistic metaphysics.

If we assume that the work Person and Act (1969)³⁹ is completely innovative and the main breakthrough achievement of Wojtyła, one can notice two different attitudes regarding the way the philosophy of consciousness and the philosophy of being are combined. The first attitude in Person and Act was basically a critique of the philosophy of consciousness from the position of St. Thomas’s realistic philosophy of being. It can be said that in these studies the disclosure of the wider plane of philosophizing prevailed in relation to what is given in consciousness, what we have in the description of phenomena, or in eidetic insight. Examples of this critical attitude towards the philosophy of consciousness are not only provided by Wojtyła’s habilitation thesis and the critique of the phenomenal concept of the person included in it, but also the development of a strictly Thomistic ethics in his Ethical Handbook⁴⁰ and the criticism of the ethics of Immanuel Kant and Max Scheler in the Lublin Lectures.⁴¹ 

Wojtyła presents another attitude towards the philosophy of consciousness in his publications after the release and discussion of his fundamental work, which is Person and Act. This attitude was not only about criticizing the philosophy of consciousness that he had already carried out, but about assimilating the discoveries of this philosophy into anthropology and Thomistic ethics. It can therefore be said that, in this case, Wojtyła criticizes Thomism and looks for a way to enrich it. This attitude is revealed in his proposal for a methodologically new structure of ethics that is outlined in Man in the Field of Responsibility (1972), written directly after the release and discussion of Person and Act, and in articles about the experience of morality from the same period.⁴²

The aforementioned two directions of research allowed Wojtyła to perceive the weaknesses of both philosophical trends, the philosophy of consciousness and the philosophy of being, and pave the way, as it were, toward their mutual reconciliation and integration. The philosophy of consciousness penetrated what belongs to the subjectivity of man and the philosophy of being that makes up its objective structure. Both dimensions of human existence reveal who a person is, with the fact that the philosophy of consciousness describes the manifestations of man’s personal life and the philosophy of being grounds them in human existence and explains their genesis and nature. The very description of the manifestations of the life of a human person is not a full appreciation of who a person is, for only causal explanations reveal the real nature of human existence. Wojtyła noticed the weakness of phenomenology is in its inability to build metaphysical foundations for the phenomena described. Even the ontology of the subject and the ontology of the conscious self developed by Roman Ingarden do not reach the real person or its reality, but only the conceived or that which is possible to occur in the subject.

In the discussion on the philosophy of consciousness, Wojtyła had a realistic position that was essential to the philosophy of being. He does not agree with the philosophy of consciousness in its operation of suspending and omitting the existence of the real world and man. Philosophy without metaphysics is not a philosophy for him. Philosophy should apply to what exists, not just what you think, what is consistent in itself, or what might occur. It is the real existence of the person in his own nature that is the basis for what constitutes the good, values, obligations and moral norms.

It can be said that in Person and Act, Wojtyła aims to overcome this cleavage of philosophy between the philosophy of consciousness and the philosophy of being, and strives to integrate or synthesize these two philosophical orientations.⁴³ He wants to overcome the narrowing of philosophy to epistemology by modern and contemporary thinkers, and to constrict philosophy only to a metaphysical analysis by the Thomists. Epistemology is the first philosophy at the starting point, but metaphysics is the first philosophy at the point of arrival, at the point of explaining what is described at the level of experience. Metaphysics cannot be displaced in the name of epistemology and vice versa. The use of both methods of philosophizing, whether in order as indicated above or even simultaneously, in which phenomenology merges with the metaphysics of being, can guard both trends from narrow, one-sided approaches, and may prove to be one of the most creative ways of philosophizing.⁴⁴ This undertaking, on the one hand, allows one to overcome subjectivism, phenomenalism, essentialism or eidetic idealism, in which individual experience is entangled, and on the other, it can saturate and enliven metaphysical categories with new specific content, opening them to the perceived and described new phenomena.

An attempt to overcome empiricism and apriorism

Karol Wojtyła noted that ethics and anthropology were also at the center of the dispute over apriorism and empiricism. The dispute of positivistic empirical currents and currents of aprioric thinking led to the tearing of cognition into empirical and a priori, to dismembering the teachings, and destructively influencing philosophy. This dispute has been known since the beginning of philosophy and concerns the role of the senses and the reason in cognition, and it has been radicalized by modern and contemporary philosophers. The culmination of a radical breakdown of the unity of sensual and mental cognition can be seen in the formal apriorism of Immanuel Kant. Wojtyła writes: “Apriorism is the position that these first direct and obvious judgments have their source only in reason and not in experience. Empiricism, on the other hand, is the basis, i.e. the source and criterion of the objectivity of cognition, of experience.”⁴⁵ 

The dispute did not so much expand but narrow the concept of experience. Radical empiricism fueled radical apriorism. “The reduction of experience,” writes Wojtyła, “to the purely sensual content of the view, which was the main thesis of the empiricists with a sensualistic attitude, contributed to Kant’s radical opposition to mental thinking and his a priori sensual experience and its natural correctness.”⁴⁶

The above dichotomy, which tears apart the sources of cognition, is accompanied by the dichotomous division of knowledge, the division of sciences into empirical-inductive, formal, analytical and deductive. Here, there is no place for autonomously practiced philosophy, let alone metaphysics. One can only cultivate philosophy as a philosophy of some kind of science.

Ethics also found itself in a difficult situation. Restricting the sources of knowledge undermined its main task of discovering what is good and what is bad, and explaining why we are facing good and evil. The links between ethics and autonomously developed philosophy with anthropology and metaphysics have been undermined. Thus, the crisis in epistemology has generated a crisis in ethics. As part of empiricism and apriorism, it was difficult to answer questions such as what morality is and what the criteria of good and evil are, as well as to discover the anthropological and metaphysical foundations of moral duties.

Positivism, using experience as an observation of physical, psychological or social facts, reduced ethics to the study of morality, that is, to the psychology and sociology of moral behaviors. It programmatically refrained from answers appropriate to ethics, that is, deciding what is good and what is wrong and why. In line with its objectives, it could not provide this type of strict ethical response. It described human behaviors and their psychological and sociological conditions. On this basis, it could only describe how people behave; it could not decide how they should behave. It substituted ethics with the psychology and sociology of morality or other teachings about morality. These teachings describe social norms as psychological or social facts, but not as facts that should be moral. They were descriptive teachings, but not normative. They could not reveal the basis of normativity, the foundation of moral obligations. Ethics, in its essential function, disappeared from the rational disciplines. It was abolished by ethical emotivism in favor of meta-ethics, or teaching that undermined the scholarship of ethics.

The elimination of the problematic issues identified by the questions of what is good and what is bad, and why, does not provide a solution to the problem, but only reveals the powerlessness of how to approach it. In addition to the usefulness of describing the social behavior of people, man asks himself the question of what he should do, why he should do it, what it is that should be done, why it should be done at all, and ultimately why what should be should be. “The answer to the question about moral good and evil is not only descriptive but also normative,” says Wojtyła, “it is one of the main human needs. According to his rational nature, science should help satisfy these needs.”⁴⁷

The above questions about good and evil are not imposed on man from the outside, but are contained in the experience of morality. This cannot be restricted to questions about the biological, psychological and social conditioning of moral experiences, because the acts of conscience, the sense of guilt, demand deeper answers than those provided by psychology or the sociology of survival. Therefore, based on a broader concept of experience, it is necessary to respond to these needs.

Wojtyła became an empiricist of the genetic Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy and modified his understanding in positivist and empirical trends. Experience, for him, has a broader scope than that determined by the empiricists; it covers not only the relationship of our moral experiences with what psychology or sociology describes, but also with what is presented by anthropology, providing a more integral knowledge about man and who he becomes by his moral actions. Ethics is not an exact science like psychology or sociology, but a philosophical science, corresponding to other, more fundamental questions than the above teachings.

In connection with the above, reference should be made to a broader understanding of experience than that of the empiricists and to a broader subject matter in experience. This experience cannot only be an impression of physical facts, it is supposed to be a fact or phenomenon of morality. According to genetic empiricism, one can say that the first moment of experience, the first stage of cognition, is the sense of reality.⁴⁸ Against the empiricists, however, Wojtyła notes that such an experience is more than a purely sensual impression, namely, the statement that “Something exists that is real and objectively independent in relation to the knowing subject, to his cognitive act, and at the same time exists as the object of this act.”⁴⁹ The second aspect of the experience is “a sense of knowing. It is a sense of a specific reference to what exists in a real and objective way.”⁵⁰ Although the sense of cognition differs in the dynamism of experience from the sense of reality, it is the first that agrees. Because we are aware of the aspect of our cognitive approaches, that is, the conscious transcendence of the real object in relation to our cognitive approaches, i.e. the esse does not equal percipi, we cannot lose sight of the concreteness and reality of what is given. This is not a regression to a purely sensory experience, but to the real object, which is richer and whose experience raises new questions about other, separate, deeper aspects of this reality. “Cognition must go beyond itself because it is fulfilled not by the truth of the act itself (percipi), but through the truth of the transcendent object—of what exists (esse), real and objective existence regardless of the act of learning.”⁵¹ This is especially important in philosophical questions that do not concern narrow aspects of reality, but include esse, a very rich and complex reality, that asks about the nature and essence of a given thing or human existence.

Thus, the fact of morality or the phenomenon of morality cannot be restricted only to biological, psychological and sociological processes; we should go further and look for their source and justification, look for what is good, and decide that I want to be good as a human being. This is the task to to be fulfilled by ethics and anthropology together with metaphysics.

Moral experience vs. human experience

Internal experience, or introspection, reveals to us a whole range of moral experiences. Experiencing and practicing morality in both one’s personal and social life can be described as moral experience. There are personal experiences with good and evil in them, with actions taken of which man is the author and creator. The perpetrator of the good is also its witness, towards himself, towards others and towards society.

On the other hand, the experience of morality, even though it cannot be revealed without moral experience, includes something more: “[It] is like a second-degree experience.”⁵² It deepens and clarifies what is moral. It reaches for what determines that something is moral or immoral, reaches the criterion of good and evil, the criterion of morality. Such a criterion may arise from the wisdom of practicing morality and improving one’s personality, but it can also be theoretically reflected and justified. Every philosophically-oriented ethics looks for such a criterion. Without it, ethics are suspended in a vacuum, because they do not provide an answer as to why something is good or bad. So the experience of morality built upon our moral experiences raises deeper questions, demands an answer as to why something is good or bad, why I should do what should be done and ultimately why that which should be done should be done.

Such a justification cannot be found in moral experiences themselves, but must be sought in the richer reality of man. The experience of morality reveals both the basics of good and moral obligations, and also to a certain extent who a person is. For when we experience the call to be moral, man also experiences himself through morality, he experiences who he is and what his nature is. “The essence of morality and humanity,” writes Wojtyła, “are inseparably connected with each other.”⁵³ This relationship is of great importance for ethics and for anthropology. The experience of morality reveals the essential properties of the human person, and human experience justifies the categorical experience in the experience of morality. Of course, human experience includes more aspects than its morality. So we can strengthen this relationship by using ethics at the starting point of human experience because of morality, that is, the experience of his personal dignity that is born of love and the affirmation of the person’s duty, because of how it is in itself.

Starting from the experience of morality, Wojtyła reconstructs the structure of ethics methodologically. The experience of morality requires understanding, interpretation and explanation, which is done by answering questions that emerge from what we experience. The basic starting questions regarding the morality we are experiencing are as follows: “What is morality?” and “What human acts are morally good or bad?”⁵⁴ The description of the characteristics of significant morality is not the description of the content of consciousness, but the description of the specifics of the real object of experience; for example, the guilt we experience as a result of a moral wrong we perpetrated. The moral value is directly related to our act, and through this act the person. Through a bad act, people become morally bad. In addition to seeing this moral value in action, becoming aware of the agency of this act, there is another moment, somehow earlier than the agency, that determines that a particular act can be classified as a bad act. “Evil appears and embeds in me a clear dependence on a factor other than my own agency. Of course, in the agency of a person, a specific moment is clearly involved, which could be described as the moment of the principle. Evil arises in action, within the act, and penetrates into the personal ‘I’ due to the fact that conscious and voluntary action does not correspond to the principle that is in conflict with it.”⁵⁵ So this is the principle, the better, the moral norm, that decides what is good and what is bad. We do not establish this principle in our agency, but we find it, and it determines which acts are morally ordered and which are forbidden. Thus, in contact with what is moral or immoral in connection with our actions, we are at the same time confronted with the principle or decisive norm of which actions have a positive and which have a negative moral value. It is in the experience of guilt that this principle or the norm of morality that is within our conscience that our own “I” stands against us. It is our judge and prosecutor. Although this duality within us is painful, we know that it is creative, it allows us to face the truth, to overcome our weaknesses and to develop our personality. In this case, the conscience is a kind of witness to this moral norm, a witness of moral truth. Thus, the fact of morality is a rich reality containing moral value, moral obligation and the norm of morality, which is the cause of moral precepts or prohibitions.

Such an interpretation of the experience of morality in which we seek an answer to the question of which human actions are good or bad implies a conception of man. The basis of good and evil cannot be a social or historical process. Morality is more deeply formed. “At the core of morality, at the same time in its proper center, there is only man as a person. There is a moral good, through which a man becomes good, and there is a moral evil, through which a man is bad.”⁵⁶

Therefore morality is revealed in us as a categorical reality, as an absolute, as it were, because it is sanctioned by the humanity of man, by his being, or not being. Among the various forms of the transcendence of the human person, transcendence through morality stands at the top of its development. “An appropriate measure of the greatness of every man is included in a morality, in which he writes his most internal and most personal story.”⁵⁷ Thus, morality requires a proper description of man and an account of his personal nature. Undermining its substantiality by reducing man to natural processes or social processes leads to his alienation and destroys his morality.

“The moment of duty reveals the ruthlessness of the good from one side, something from the absolute which is in the human person” states Wojtyła, “and at the same time in a special way is revealing the contingency of this person.”⁵⁸ In view of the necessity of the moral improvement of the person, we are looking for answers, for the reasons why this order of improvement is given to me. Why are moral imperatives in me categorical, absolute, so to speak? The search for ultimate explanations for this absolute morality directs us to metaphysics, to discover the foundations of the rationality of human nature, the rationality of being. Morality opens us to the Absolute, to its rationality, and it also opens us to religious or supernatural reality. The metaphysics of contingent beings and the Absolute Being ultimately explains why we live through what we are experiencing, why ultimately we should do what we should.

In sum, Karol Wojtyła developed a concept of ethics, which at the starting point describes what is given in the experience of morality, then he interprets and explains morality in the philosophy of man, and finally he incorporates it into an explanation of the philosophy of being, including the philosophy of God. It applies a realistic approach to experience, so it is not limited to sensory impressions or to some narrow content of consciousness, but focuses on the wealth of the experienced subject, which by its complexity provokes questions about its further aspects, even those more deeply hidden ones. This experience raises questions about the phenomenon of morality, as well as questions about man and the Absolute Being.

Inspired by Wojtyła’s research, two ethical models can be developed: bottom-up and top-down. In the first, the kind preferred by him, we go from the phenomenon to the foundation, from the experience of morality through its grounding in the concept of man and ultimately in the concept of the Absolute. However, if one accepts a view of a broadly understood experience of actual reality, then all fundamental philosophical questions emerge, that is, questions concerning morality, man and God, and then the second model of ethics can be justified as a metaphysics of morality, saturated with the content of the experience of morality. Anthropology or metaphysics also derive knowledge from experience. Perhaps the separation of various experiences and objects of these experiences is dictated by methodological considerations, the separation of a rich reality into narrow individual aspects determined by individual philosophical disciplines.

Kazimierz Krajewski describes this understanding of experience by writing: “The theoretical perspectives of certain sciences, rooted in experience, are uno actu. Primum ethicum et primum anthropologicum et primum metaphysicum convertuntur. Separating the experiences from each other is a reflection of meta-theoretical interest, that is, a research goal, but it is not a matter of direct data. The description of what the data consists of is distinguishing and highlighting the moments of experience. Separation is the work of reflection. … The co-experience of experience in the unity of the act of one and the same subject is directly given.”⁵⁹

When distinguishing the experiences and objects of these experiences for ethics, anthropology and metaphysics, we should not ignore their relationship with each other. “Ethical experience is integral, that is, the elements that constitute them mutually depend on each other. … experience is essentially co-experience. Each of the aspects refers to others, without which the distinguished aspect loses its identity. In experience everything is given suddenly. In the analysis, these moments must be distinguished, but they must not be separated from each other.”⁶⁰ In connection with the above, building ethics from the phenomenology of morality through anthropology to the metaphysics of morality, or the reverse of the metaphysics of morality through enriching it with human phenomenology and the phenomenology of morality, despite the difference in the methodological structure of ethics in both cases, does not necessarily lead to the opposing content-related contents of this discipline, but rather to the same, or complementary, approach.

Strengthening ethics in anthropology is needed not only to discover the fact of moral obligation, but also to effectively implement it. We must determine it in terms of content, not only from the goodness of the act, that is, the desire to affirm the dignity of the person, but also from the rightness of the act, that is, what objectively affirms the person. “The core of the problem is that the experience of the human being as a person who is necessary and is basically enough to be considered a worthy affirmation for himself, is not always enough to know what in our actions directed at it really affirms it [emphasis added, T.B.], and what does not affirm it. … Is, for example, the area of human activity covered by the name ‘religion’ an area through which man performs acts of the deepest affirmation of humanity, or is it also a sphere of activity turned entirely against him, the sphere in which man distances himself or dehumanizes?”⁶¹ We cannot dispense ourselves in ethics from the dispute over the nature of the human person. Such resignation would undermine the possibility of formulating morally right judgments, and thus would make it impossible to practice ethics as a philosophical discipline capable of defining the rules of conduct.⁶²

4. THE BODY AS A SIGN OF THE PERSON

Introduction

In his “Theology of the Body,” the first part of which was created before the election of Karol Wojtyła to the Holy See, John Paul II wrote: “The body reveals the person. This concise formula already contains in itself everything about the structure of the body as an organism, about its vitality, its special sexual physiology that it is able to tell human science” (IX 4).⁶³ Ten years earlier, the philosopher Karol Wojtyła wrote: “The human body—as everyone understands—in its visible dynamics is a terrain, it is in a sense even a means of expression for the person.”⁶⁴ 

If we say that the body expresses the person, then at the same time we assume that the person—the human person, as in the world in which we live, only people appear to us as persons, whereas people like God or angels are purely spiritual beings—and the body has a kind of relationship, a relationship that, as we shall see, is a relationship of special closeness, but not of identity. We can even say that it is this particular relationship to the body that makes sure that we assign a name (not the concept, strictly speaking) of “person” to certain existing entities in our world. To further characterize this relationship, we will use the method of Karol Wojtyła from Person and Act, i.e. from the phenomenological description we will come to the metaphysical interpretation, adding to it some remarks that already cross the threshold of theology. This will lead us to the conclusion that a meeting with the human person in our body is a meeting with a double transcendence: with transcendence, which is the person himself (in The Person: Entity and Community, Wojtyła states that “transcendence … is in a sense the second person’s name”⁶⁵), and with Transcendence (capitalized) that is present in this transcendence, which is the human person.

Historical-cultural context

In the philosophical and theological reflections of the twentieth century, we can easily notice a keen interest in the corporeal dimension of the existence of the human person. It seems that we can point out two reasons for this interest. On the one hand, for some time, philosophers have tried to overcome a kind of anthropological duality that appeared at the beginning of modern philosophy together with the Cartesian division of man into two substances, res cogitans and res extensa, substances between which—in the view of man presented by Descartes—there is no similarity, and the bond between them remains mysterious and in some sense artificial. It is the phenomenological method mentioned above that allows us to show the purely speculative character of this chapter and to show how a person experiences his body and expresses his inner life in it and through it. Among the phenomenologists, let us recall here Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Michel Henry, and among the authors who developed their anthropological concepts in reference to the results of modern biology, it is worth mentioning the names of Arnold Gehlen and Helmut Plessner.

On the other hand, one must also remember that an extensive reflection has not been devoted to the theology of the reality of the human body. (It can be added that the very expression “theology of the body” was quite surprising when it was first used by John Paul II.) Catholic theology has never succumbed to the temptation of Manicheism, and in scholastic theology, inspired by the philosophical-theological vision of St. Thomas, the body was considered to be an essential part of the compositum humanum (interpreted philosophically according to Aristotelian hylemorphism). However, it is also true that in scholastic philosophy the reflection on corporeality was focused on the metaphysical dimension (the soul–body relation), and scholastic theology did not develop a separate treatise devoted to man. As in the case of philosophy, the anthropological sensitivity of the twentieth century prompted theology to develop its subject, taking as its starting point the human experience—although we must admit that the results of these attempts were not always satisfactory. However, it cannot be denied that within this “anthropological turn,” works have been created that reveal new horizons before theology, even a separate theological treatise on man.

The way out of this impasse in understanding the body and its role in the structure of the human person can only be found through reflection that comes from the experience of the body. This does not mean, of course, that we will no longer argue about its interpretation—the dispute over the body is a dispute about man, and this will always happen. However, in order to take even a step forward in this dispute, it is worth starting with a reflection on what Karol Wojtyła refers to as a source experience, an experience that precedes all his philosophical or theological interpretations and is the final analysis regarding their validity. This is precisely the attempt made by John Paul II in his theology of the body.

The body is the expression of a person

At the beginning of this chapter, we recalled the words of Karol Wojtyła, according to which the body is “a means of expressing the person.” What does this statement mean? What content can be used by a philosopher who tries to analyze the experience using the phenomenological method?

Let us start with some of the most basic intuitions, then go from the phenomenological description to attempt a metaphysical interpretation (and in the end a theological one as well). When we think about some kind of person, or better, when we imagine him or her, what appears spontaneously in the eyes of our imagination is the external image of his or her body. We are not interested in the internal structure of the body, although this structure is undoubtedly important—it is important for learning, and a doctor can determine the person’s identity on the basis of characteristics that we normally do not see in our everyday experience (for example, on the basis of fingerprints). This first intuition already tells us a lot: First of all, it tells us that in our everyday experience we do not perceive a person as a ghost (or as a soul—generally speaking, as a purely spiritual being), but recognize their identity on the basis of the external image of the body. The identity of a person with his or her body is confirmed by another experience, which is the inner life. When someone touches some part of my body, I can say: “Who touched my hand?” Equally, the same experience can be expressed in the words: “Who touched me?” The testimony of our daily experience shows that by touching the body I do not come into contact with some res extensa, with something; on the contrary—I come in direct contact with someone, with a person. We will return to the richness of content contained in this experience. At first glance, it may seem quite trivial, but in fact it already contains what constitutes the essence of being personal. If our colloquial language allows for the equitable use of the two impressions “someone touches my hand” and “someone touches me,” it means that we experience our relation to the body in two different ways: we have our body (we say: my body) and we are our body. In Person and Act, Wojtyła says that my “I” is at the same time both immanent and transcendent to my body. The body—and here we encounter the first dimension of the body understood as a sign of the person—allows direct contact with another person, a sign that, due to its obviousness and transparency, we almost do not see as a sign (medium quo), because in most cases our attention does not stop only on the body of the other, but spontaneously goes to the whole person. In meeting we are dealing not with the body of the other person, but with the other person. Therefore, the body does not appear to us as one of the objects existing in the world—in the theology of the body, John Paul II observes that in the book of Genesis, the first man, being a body among bodies, discovers his loneliness because he is experiencing his body in a different way from everything that surrounds him. The body, being an expression of the subject that experiences it from within, is not itself an object, but has a subjective dimension—it is a sign of a person.

In our description of what is given in the experience, let us now take the next step. The human body is not simply an animated organism. In our concept of the body, there is more than just the fact that an organism in the biological sense is a living organism. In science, we can analyze the body in this way, but it is only a scientific abstraction, which is necessary because science works in this way. The German language makes a distinction between Körper and Leib that is useful in our context; we can distinguish between the living body and the body being lived. The human body is an organism that someone experiences from within. The principle that an animated organism makes a human body—a body that one experiences as its own—belongs neither to biology nor to any other scientific discipline, and therefore our understanding of human corporeality cannot be limited to its scientific interpretation, but must refer to philosophy, and in the final analysis—as we shall see—exceeds even the threshold of theology.

The fact that the body expresses a person who experiences it as his own body confirms both the way we perceive another person’s body and the relationship we have with our own body. It is obvious that not all parts of it have the same meaning in the external body image, in other words: not all serve to represent the person in the same way. Wojtyła in Love and Responsibility, and then John Paul II in the theology of the body, analyzed this reality on the basis of the phenomenon of shame. If a man spontaneously hides his sexual organs, he does not do so because he is ashamed of having them. Sexual shame has a protective function in the survival of the person, because the person does not want to be seen only as an object of desire, as an item endowed with sexual qualities, but desires to be perceived and affirmed as a subject, wants to be affirmed for his own sake. The very fact that man experiences his body in such a way testifies to the fact that he experiences it as a sign of his being a person as the external expression of his subjectivity.

However, not all parts of the body express this subjectivity in the same way. Some, especially the face and eyes, express human subjectivity more directly than others, such as the sexual organs. The fact that a man spontaneously conceals his sexual organs means that he wants the attention of the other person to focus first on those parts of his body that directly express his transcendence to the world of objects. This experience is based, for example, on the unusually interesting philosophy of face and gaze developed by Emmanuel Lévinas, who showed how the face expresses the uniqueness and irreducibility of the human person, and how the experience of meeting the face of the other makes us experience an unconditional ethical appeal that emanates from it.

From its very beginning, the human body speaks a language that is the language of a person. The very concept of body language is widely discussed today; there are many books and articles which focus on meanings that relate to specific gestures or behaviors. It is worth emphasizing that Wojtyła as John Paul II had already developed some of his intuitions about the body experience in his theology of the body, in which he uses the concept of body language; however, it does not stop at a functional or only phenomenal level, but shows its deeper dimensions: ontological and moral. At this point, we can only provide a few comments on the concept of body language. We all understand how the human spirit is expressed by such human behaviors and gestures as a smile, kiss or caress. We understand this body language even when we are in a country whose spoken language is unknown to us. Using phenomenological terminology, we can say that human gestures and non-verbal behaviors have their own noemat (proper content, message), which they express irrespective of the significance that the subject may assign to them and which may be consistent or inconsistent with their natural meaning. We all know the phrase “the kiss of Judas,” which became a metaphor for an internally false gesture. This gesture is intrinsically false because there is the kiss’s objective meaning, independent of the intentions of the subject (a kiss expresses kindness, friendship, love), and in the case of Judas’s kiss, the intent of the author of this gesture is completely different from the objective message of the kiss. The gesture expresses the content that the author does not live through, which is why he is misleading the addressee of the gesture. Let us quote here another example, this time a positive one. In his Wednesday catechesis, John Paul II, speaking about the objective meaning of the human body in the context of human love, calls it spousal meaning—the body expresses the gift of itself, which the person makes to the other person. In this perspective, a sexual act is also an expression of this gift of self, through which two people constitute a new reality, which John Paul II called the “communion of persons.” The Pope writes: “In this way, the eternal and always new ‘body language’ is not only the ‘matter’ but also, in a sense, the constitutive content of the communion of persons. People—man and woman—become a gift for each other. They become it in their masculinity and femininity, discovering the nuptial meaning of the body and referring them to each other in an irreversible way: in the entire dimension of life.”⁶⁶

If this is the case, then we can say that the human body is a kind of word that expresses the right content, specifically, its own noemat: it is an objective and sensible expression of what is inherently subjective, i.e. the human “I”. Therefore, our actions, which are addressed to other human beings, cannot disregard what the body says, or better: we can, of course, ignore body language, but then we deceive another person or violate her dignity in a different way. If—as the personalist standard says—persona est affirmanda per se ipsam, the person should be affirmed because of their unique value, that is, his or her personal dignity is expressed in the body of a person and cannot be affirmed except through the affirmation of his or her body and its proper speech. To give just one example: one cannot affirm the dignity of a person without affirming his or her life in the body, because life is the way of its existence (vivere viventibus esse). This example is not at all fancy or abstract, because—as we have already mentioned—recently attempts have been made to justify killing a whole class of people (unborn people) by separating human dignity and human life. The relativization of human life, however, is necessarily a relativization of the human person.⁶⁷ The meaning of typical acts in which the affirmation of a person is expressed is already given in the structure of the body itself: the affirmation of biological life—feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty—means the affirmation of human dignity.

Up to now, we have analyzed this dimension of our relationship with the body, which we express with the words: “I am my body,” emphasizing the immanence of the person in her body. It is worth, however, adding at least a few comments on the second form of our relationship with the body, expressed in the statement: “I possess my body.” It is true, if the person’s body is sick, that it is not only the body that suffers but the whole person. But it is also true that I can distance myself from a diseased organ in my body, somehow withdrawing my subjectivity from it. Therefore, the amputation of the sick part of the human body does not diminish human subjectivity or human dignity in any way. It also happens that I perceive some of the stimuli that come from my body as contradictory to my personal aspirations. These are not always what “I want”—and it is no coincidence that we use an impersonal form here—but rather what is really “wanted.” What is more, I can even imagine my existence in another body without losing my personal identity. We know the famous story by Franz Kafka titled The Metamorphosis,⁶⁸ in which the hero wakes up one morning as a huge insect. “What happened to me?” thinks Gregor Samsa. Even if his appearance, the form of his body, had become completely different from that which had existed to this point, Samsa did not lose his personal identity. Many cultures impart moral and religious interpretations to the transcendence of a person over his body, maintaining that—depending on the moral quality of life—the same person can be born again in another, also inhuman body.

At this point, we can only point to these intuitions. It seems, however, that their presence also in non-Christian cultures testifies to the universality of the concept of a person that was created within Christian culture and which is the theoretical expression of this experience of our relationship to the body about which we are now speaking. In order to conceptualize the details of Revelation, the first Christian theologians developed a theory of the person that did not exist in the Greek world in this form. According to this theory, being a person consists of having an appropriate nature; therefore, God’s nature can have three persons simultaneously, and Christ, while remaining a person of God, has at the same time two natures: Divine and human. That which theology has developed, starting “from above” (i.e. coming from Revelation), philosophy, especially phenomenology, can—at least in relation to the human person—demonstrate “from below,” i.e. from direct experience. In its own way, the Book of Genesis confirms this fact, according to which man was created in the image and likeness of God. This is the method applied by Wojtyła in Person and Act, which, not coincidentally, begins with a chapter devoted to human experience. Wojtyła is not so much trying to justify the claim that man is a person, but trying to show how man experiences himself as a person. Wojtyła’s phenomenological analysis leads us, so to speak, to the threshold of ontology and vice versa: ontology acquires a phenomenological and experimental dimension. A good illustration of Wojtyła’s method is the subject of our considerations, i.e. the relation of a person to his or her body. The ontological definition of a person states: “The existence of a person depends on it having a nature.”⁶⁹ It is here that Wojtyła’s definition obtains experiential confirmation in the structural analysis of self-possession and self-determination. Possessing one’s own self-experience, which is given in the experience “I have my body,” a human being experiences and realizes himself as a person. The distinction between these two analytical dimensions—the ontological and phenomenological—is extremely important and has serious practical consequences. The influential current of modern and contemporary philosophy—from John Locke to Derek Parfitt—eliminates this difference because it identifies the person with its manifestations in the experimental dimension (in accordance with the empiricist concept of experience). However, let us draw attention to the fact that the philosophy mentioned here in its own meaning privileges the experience of self-ownership, leaving in the shadow the second—also experimentally given—form of the person’s relation to the body, i.e. the identity of the person with his or her body. In this context, Wojtyła’s philosophy appears more realistic because Wojtyła knows that there are structures of human existence that are not directly given in consciousness (or are not always immediately given in consciousness), but they are not for this reason less real.

In conclusion, the phenomenological status of the body is the status of a sign, the outward manifestation of the human “I”; its status is a metaphysical status, so to speak, an existential substrate of the “I”—the existence of the human person is to possess the body.

5. FREEDOM AS SELF-DETERMINATION IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF KAROL WOJTYŁA

Introduction

The question about human freedom is one of the main themes of modern human philosophy. To simplify it somewhat, we can say that while ancient and medieval philosophy recognized man’s rationality as a distinguishing feature in the world (the human being as animal rationale), modern humanism sees differentia specifica in human freedom. In other words, in pre-modern philosophy, it was argued that human reason is able to reach the truth about reality and, above all, the truth about a man who, by the very fact of his existence, becomes the measure of his conduct. For example, when St. Thomas Aquinas defines the human will as an appetitus rationalis, he thinks that this is what differentiates him from animals, that he does not satisfy his natural desires according to the impulses of instincts but subjects instincts to reason, which is able to know what is truly good for man. To express it another way, the general desire for good, which man shares with other beings, in his case is mediated in rational cognition, and the truth is the object of rational cognition.

As a result of the processes that had already begun in the late Middle Ages, modern philosophy—or at least a substantial part of it—had lost faith in the possibility of the objective knowledge of truth, and sometimes even its very existence. As a consequence, freedom was recognized as the feature that distinguishes man in the world, and reason became the tool that allows man to effectively implement projects that flow from the initiative of his freedom. In some cases, even the truth of freedom was opposed, the truth being recognized as a threat to human freedom (F. Nietzsche, M. Foucault). Of course, it is true that in modern philosophy, the question about human freedom was answered in different, sometimes diametrically opposed ways: some philosophers denied its existence, recognizing human beings as completely determined by their material circumstances, or understanding freedom only as a conscious necessity (Marxism). Others identified the human person as the center of freedom, unrestricted or limited only by mutual consensus (e.g. social contract).

The fact that Wojtyła chose the human act as the starting point of his anthropological analysis shows that the problem of freedom had already become the object of his attention. And so it is seen primarily in Person and Act, as well as in several articles published in later years.⁷⁰ According to its heuristic rule, which requires that you first explore insights and only then deal with ideas, Wojtyła starts from the simplest experiences, in which a person experiences his freedom, trying to reveal the richness of their content. Theoretical concepts, which he introduces during his analysis (such as the concept of self-determination), have their source and their justification in these first intuitions, initially expressed in simple language. Such expressed intuitions demand further clarification, which, in turn, lead Wojtyła to their theoretical development. Thus described and theoretically analyzed experiences of freedom can then be compared with other concepts that we find in various philosophical currents.

“I can—I do not have to—I want to”

In the search for the source of the experience of freedom, it is good to begin by comparing man with those creatures with whom he shares much from the material side, i.e. animals. We only speak of freedom in regards to human beings, while the actions of animals are determined by their nature. Where does this difference come from? Like animals, man is equipped with basic drives (the drive for self-preservation, sex drive, etc.), but in the case of human beings, these drives are not natural instincts which the person must obey, but rather tendencies which direct him or her toward the core of their existence and the development of value (the preservation and development of life, the existence of a relationship with others). It is here that Wojtyła places the source experience of freedom. Freedom is first given to us in the experience: “I can, I do not have to,” although—as we will show in a moment—this is only the first and basic yet incomplete moment of the experience of freedom. Without this moment, however, one could not speak about freedom, i.e. in a situation in which “I can” is completely subordinated to “I must,” freedom would not be possible. The “I can, I do not have to” experience leads to the next moment of the experience of freedom that the phrase “I want” expresses. Man chooses from various values that appear to him as attractive, i.e. those that attract him in some way, but ultimately these values do not determine his choice. It is a particular person that says “I want,” and with the word “want” he determines himself to a particular course of action. Before a closer analysis of the full content of the experience “I want,” it is worth looking at what Kant calls the conditions of this experience, which Wojtyła finds in the ontological structure of the person.

The “I want” experience in the ontological structure of a person corresponds to the will, which is the real power of man as subject. In the philosophical tradition, much attention was given to the analysis of the freedom of will. Wojtyła’s approach is distinguished by the fact that he treats freedom not as a property of the will or as the power of a human person, but rather as a feature of the person itself, which in a sense can be defined as the center of freedom. Only a being that is free can be called a person. Freedom therefore belongs to the internal constitution of the person who, as viewed by Robert Spaemann, could be defined as a being that exists in the relationship of its own nature. The relation of a person to nature consists of its possession: a person is a being that has its own nature.⁷¹ If in the case of animals it is their nature that is the principle of their actions, then man is able to respond to his nature; he wants or does not want to realize what his nature suggests to him as the possible goals of his actions. This is expressed in another way by Harry Frankfurt in the famous article “Wolność woli i pojęcie osoby” [“Freedom of Will and the Notion of the Person”].⁷² According to Frankfurt, people are distinguished by their ability to have “second-order desires.” Being a person consists of the fact that a given being not only has specific conscious desires (this is the case for both people and animals), but may also want or not want certain desires (this is only the case for people). Having second-order desires is precisely about the freedom of a person who not only evaluates things from the viewpoint of their desires, but is also able to assess their desires (and to want them or not to want them—Wyspiański already knew about second-order desires when he wrote in The Wedding: “And they do not want to want”). Wojtyła, however, expresses the experience of second-order desires in the concept of self-determination. This concept expresses experience, which has its ontological basis in the structures of “self-ownership” and “self-control.” These concepts describe Wojtyła’s relationship with the nature we mentioned above. Due to these relations, which find their expression in self-determination, man is not only a subject in the metaphysical sense, but he experiences himself as a concrete self. For this reason, it is not enough for him, as it is in the case of animals, to realize the good of his species (by prolonging its existence by giving birth to new specimens of the species), but he also wants to pursue this good in a way that is right for him as a specific self. This means that man is not just a specimen of his species, but a person, someone who cannot be completely expressed in a general definition, such as the classic definition of man as animal rationale.⁷³ 

Self-determination is an experience given in the self-awareness of a person. Its central moment is the experience of agency. Wojtyła distinguishes between two basic ways of the actualization of the human person: in the first, he defines the concept of “doing,” and the second is the “action” of the person in the proper sense. Wojtyła describes the concept of “doing” with the words “something happens in a person.” It is thus the potentiality of such actualizing of the personal being, which is not accompanied by the experience of agency; in a sense, one can say that a person is an “area” in which this actualization takes place, but it is not the person who decides its course. The category of doing includes, for example, various ways the human body functions, which are largely even beyond the reach of consciousness. In this dimension, human nature functions on the power of its own organic dynamics. The sphere of doing also depends on the sphere of human emotions, though in this case, at least to a large extent, a person can be aware and also in some way affect and guide it. Generally, however, experiencing all kinds of feelings is not accompanied by the experience of agency, which is why it should be included in the realm of doing.

Agency is at the heart of the human act—without the experience of agency, we would only be dealing with the doing of human nature. In the case of an act, therefore, we are not dealing with persona in actu, but with actus personae—with a person who decides about his act and about himself. And it is in the experience of being as the author of his own act that man experiences his freedom—he decides about himself. Agency applies not only to the act but also to the person himself. A person is not only the “creator” of his act, but is also—of course, to a certain extent—the creator of himself. Therefore, we can say that the first subject of the self-determination of man is himself, his own self. The personal structure of self-determination, about which Wojtyła writes, consists of the fact that when deciding about anything, the person decides about himself. Every act not only changes something in the world around us, but also shapes the person: it makes him realize himself as a person or in some way interferes with his personal self-realization.

At this point, it is good to distinguish the personalistic value of an act and its moral value. In Wojtyła’s anthropology, the act of a person has value by the mere fact that it is the act of a person, i.e. because he expresses his personal interior. If a person is respected due to his dignity, he is also deemed to manifest himself in his act, as long as this act does not violate the good of another person. Wojtyła calls this value of the act its personalistic value. From this value one should distinguish the moral value of an act, with which the personalistic value is often identified. The moral value of an act does not come from the fact that it is an act of a person—it is a necessary condition, but that is not enough; it comes from the conformity with a moral norm that does not depend on a person. Therefore, as we mentioned, not every act leads to the fulfillment of a person, because a person fulfills himself as a person through a moral good—it is only a morally good man about whom we say he is good as a human. This means that the person’s fulfillment depends on him or herself, on how he or she will be about him or herself. In other words, it depends on their freedom.

Freedom as independence and dependence

If we think about freedom, we usually understand it as independence. A person who is free is someone who does not depend on others and can decide for himself. For the understanding of freedom, the category of independence is undoubtedly important, but for Wojtyła, the category of dependence is also important. It is only in the light of these two categories that we can understand what the human experience of freedom is.

Let us start with independence. Freedom means, first of all, independence from various types of external factors. We can call this sense of freedom “external freedom”: a person who is not physically or mentally forced to perform a specific type of activity is free, as well as a person who, without any fear of sanctions, can express his views and pursue his life endeavors. External freedom, however, does not exhaust the importance of human freedom. In a sense, we can say—and this is our language custom—that an animal that is not kept in a cage or on a chain and lives in the wild is free. In this case, being free means, however, simply the possibility of freely realizing impulses flowing from instincts. An animal that lives in the wild is not free, because it remains subordinate to the laws of its nature. Therefore, in the case of man, freedom means not only external freedom but—and above all—internal freedom, that is, the relationship with his own nature, due to which we call this man a person. In this case, Wojtyła speaks of “independence from the object of wanting in an intentional act.” What does that mean? In an intentional act, man goes beyond him-self and turns to the object of his knowledge. As phenomenologists say, all knowledge is knowledge of “something,” and this is its intentionality. This type of crossing oneself towards the object of knowledge is what Wojtyła calls “horizontal transcendence.” Knowing, however, does not determine the object of the person’s desire. Although human will has a kind of general desire for good (there is an appetitus rationalis, of which St. Thomas Aquinas spoke), none of the goods he knows in and of themselves determine a person’s actions. At this point, Wojtyła’s vision of freedom differs from St. Thomas’s concept. The latter can be interpreted in such a way—and is in fact so interpreted⁷⁴—that freedom will appear as a result of the imperfection of human cognition—man is free because he does not clearly know what his real good is. If his knowledge in this respect was perfect, he would always follow it. For Wojtyła, along with horizontal transcendence, “vertical transcendence” is also important, that is, the dependence of man on his own self. It is this dependence that determines that man is free. In intentional acts the person is given various items, but it is she who decides which one she chooses, because an intentional act is included in the proper structure of self-determination and self-control. Without this, depending on one’s own I, which is the core of self-determination, we would have to deal with either determinism or the randomness of indeterminism—in both cases, the experience of freedom would have to be considered an illusion.

“I can—I do not have to—I want to—I should”

The experience of freedom as a dependence on one’s self, however, does not exhaust the experience of freedom. In the analysis that Wojtyła carries out in Person and Act, there is another dimension of dependence, which as an equal dependency on the self is constitutive of the experience of freedom. It is dependence on the truth. According to Wojtyła, a man who can be a free person experiences his dependence on the truth not as a limitation of his freedom, but rather as its condition and at the same time as a moral challenge that the person faces. Analysis of self-determination, which begins with the “I can—I do not have to” experience, finds its culmination in the “I want to” decision, but the decision is not simply an expression of the arbitrary will of the person, but a response to the appeal that flows from reality—“I want to” combined with “I should.” In other words, freedom as the dependence of a person on himself fulfills itself in its self-dependence on the truth, which does not depend on him. Moreover, a person is not subject to the impulses of his instincts and emotions precisely because in his action he is able and willing to follow the truth. And only then does he experience himself fully as a person. That is why Wojtyła writes: “Without this transcendence—without crossing and overcoming oneself in the direction of truth and towards the good wanted and chosen in the light of truth—a person, the personal subject, is in a sense not himself.”⁷⁵

Let us try to illustrate this example. Imagine that we have received a message that someone whom we considered a friend has been disloyal to us or even betrayed us. Our first and natural reaction is outrage, perhaps we even think about how to repay him for such wickedness. After a while, however, from a completely reliable source, we learn that the message was false and our friend is completely innocent. What is our reaction? We do not feel indignation anymore, we do not want to take revenge because our emotional reaction, which pushed us to act, did not survive the test of truth. We can therefore say that the analysis of our choice reveals the “moment of truth” is present in it, which is an internal element of the intentionality of wanting. In this sense, this reference to the truth means that man is not dependent on the objects of his intentional acts, but rather he evaluates them from a higher level, which, precisely speaking, is the level of the question about the truth. Man strives for good, but he also considers the question about the “truth of the good,” and it is the truth about the good that is the principle of his personal action.

Of course, in his choices, man is not always guided by the truth. Sometimes he also chooses against the truth he recognized and acknowledged. According to Wojtyła, however, he acts in a certain way against the nature of his freedom, which in its essence is a rational freedom, or a freedom directed to the truth about the good. Selecting the truth about the good in Wojtyła’s meaning is a moral choice, because the experience of “I want” is often accompanied by the experience of “I should.” Moral duty is for Wojtyła nothing other than the “normative power of truth” given in the experience.

Freedom, understood as self-determination, is therefore a moral freedom at its very root. It turns out that in a particular act of a person, dependence on their own self and dependence on the truth constitute experimental unity. The truth that a person learns in the act of knowing becomes her truth, a part of her subjective reality. If a person wants to be faithful to himself, he must also be faithful to the truth that he has met and recognized. This ethos of persons expresses well the words that Wojtyła wrote in the poem Narodziny wyznawców [The Birth of Confessors]: “But if the truth is in me, it must explode. I cannot push her away, because I would push myself away.”⁷⁶

In Wojtyła’s anthropology, the self-determination of a person is a synthesis of independence and a dual dependence: dependence on the self and dependence on the truth.

6. THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF KAROL WOJTYŁA AS VIEWED BY TADEUSZ STYCZEŃ

Introduction

On the occasion of the seventieth birthday of Professor Fr. Tadeusz Styczeń, John Paul II addressed a letter to his former student and successor at the Department of Ethics of the Catholic University of Lublin, in which he wrote: “All the following degrees: masters, doctorate, and in turn habilitation, followed each other at a fairly fast pace, so that I could be calm about the future of the Chair of Ethics at the Catholic University of Lublin. I was formally associated with it until 1978, but practically everything was based on you.”⁷⁷ The friendship and the close, long-term academic cooperation of Tadeusz Styczeń with his master made his philosophical work a particularly important interpretation and at the same time extension of Karol Wojtyła’s ideas. It is worth paying attention to those elements of Wojtyła’s philosophy that his student and co-worker considered crucial.

Unlike his master, Tadeusz Styczeń did not leave any treaty comparable to that of Person and Act. In his texts, it is Wojtyła’s work that is the main reference point when the author discusses anthropological issues, and many of these texts are a direct commentary on Wojtyła’s concept. However, one cannot claim that Styczeń simply repeats the thesis of the author of Person and Act, only adapting it to ethics, which was the primary focus of his academic work. Wojtyła’s text was rather an impulse for Styczeń’s own original reflections, in which Wojtyła’s intuitions were subjected to further theoretical processing. Thus, Styczeń focused on certain motifs of Person and Act—those which he considered particularly important for anthropology, showing those moments of human experience in which he expresses himself in a special way as a person and in which he experiences his personal being. Styczeń returned many times to fragments of Person and Act, especially those referring to the transcendence of the person, devoting time to the extensive analysis of them. He believed that the task of a philosopher who practices ethical reflection is to show what constitutes the uniqueness of man among all other beings; it is the reason, as he liked to say, why he exists “differently and higher” than the whole world around him. One can say that in Styczeń’s vision, the task of ethics is to show this “higher,” that is, unique value of a man who calls ethics his personal dignity. The task of anthropology, on the other hand, is to explore humanity “differently,” that is, as the way of being, which makes us refer to the concept of a person as only human.

Insight before belief

It is no coincidence that one of Styczeń’s key texts bears the significant title Revealing the Person. The text is the answer to a questionnaire which asked about the tasks of ethics, but I think that it can be equally well treated as an answer to the question about the way and meaning of cultivating anthropology. Also, human philosophy—as Styczeń understood it—is to show what constitutes the specificum humanum. In other words it is the revelation of a person, the who, to anyone who is interested in it, with the subject himself, including (or maybe even above all) philosophy. In philosophy, the point is not to remain at the level of what—recalling the Heidegger term—“is being said,” but for a personal confrontation with the reality being examined. In a reflection on a human being, do not give in to the pressures of universally accepted opinions, nor entrust the study of who a person is only to science (in its modern meaning, i.e. the so-called detailed sciences). Of course, detailed teachings provide us with enormous knowledge about man, but because of their methodological assumptions they are unable to describe all aspects of human existence. Moreover, certain aspects are left out of the field of their attention, and thus they are unable to formulate a holistic vision of the human. They also cannot capture what constitutes the specificity of human existence, the fact that man is a rational and free entity, or person. They cannot do it because “being a person” is not an empirical trait (again—in the modern sense of empiricism). This philosophy is also unable to do that, which limits the cognitive experience only to external and internal sensory perceptions, their generalization and analysis. It is not surprising, therefore, that one of the fathers of empirical philosophy, David Hume, considered the very existence of the human subject—the human self—an illusion, as no empirical data corresponds to it.

Fully agreeing with the analysis of the concept of experience that Wojtyła carried out in his introduction to Person and Act, Styczeń considered limiting human cognition to a narrowly understood empiricism (sense cognition) as arbitrary. He was convinced that the starting point of the philosopher’s reflection is experience, but in his opinion, a much broader concept of experience should be adopted than that of the empiricists—and this should be done in the name of the experience itself. In his early writings he argued for the necessity of such an extension of the concept of experience, pointing to the fact of moral experience, which is a fact, and therefore something real, objectively given, and at the same time a fact that cannot be adequately described and explained in terms of the empiricist concept of experience (just as it cannot be reduced only to a linguistic fact). Therefore, if we are confronted with facts that do not fit within the concept of experience we have set up, we must not ignore this fact, but it should force us to modify the concept itself, so that without arbitrary restrictions it would fit into everything that we experience directly. Commenting on the anthropology of Karol Wojtyła, Styczeń wrote: “At the beginning, only experience counts, only insight. It is the experience of the world and at the same time itself in it—by contrast with it. … Human experience in this world, so understood, overtakes all theory, both human and the world. That it is the exclusive source for building a theory of man, anthropology and the sole basis for its legitimacy.”⁷⁸

In other words: the concept of experience should not precede the experience itself or, in other words, the words of Styczeń, the insight should precede the belief. It is the insights, the direct contacts with reality, that determine what can and cannot be considered as a reliable concept of experience. Such a vision of philosophical anthropology also means that it is, just like ethics, a discipline epistemologically and methodologically independent of both philosophical systems and accepted worldviews. According to Styczeń, it is the philosophical visions of man or worldviews that must justify the legitimacy of their claims by pointing to appropriate, justifying experiences. The philosophical theory of man only then has cognitive value when it adequately answers the questions that the human experience itself poses.

Of course, philosophy cannot be limited only to the registration of experiences. From their description, or from the level that can be called the level of phenomenological analysis, it must go to their explanation. It cannot be a kind of “egology,” that is, a record of the experiences of a particular philosopher. It would not be different from literature (with the only difference being that it would not normally be too high a literature). In human philosophy, as in all philosophy, it is about general knowledge and inter-subjectively verifiable knowledge. The philosopher first states the facts and then tries to explain them—and explain this by pointing out their final reasons. In the opinion of Styczeń, only this kind of philosophy provides knowledge tailored to our cognitive needs. He writes: “We ask about the ultimate reasons of fact. Here is the what and the why something is so, and why something is rather than is not. We are putting such questions above all at the address, and under the pressure, of this fact which each of us is alone for himself. The process of explaining the experience data thus entails logic, especially the logic of reduction, and with it, its ordering towards data—a function. Thus, on the basis of human experience (iuxta-positio), a system (com-positio) is emerging, theory is created, a science about man, that is anthropology.”⁷⁹

Thus the phenomenology of man becomes the metaphysics of man. The creator of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, also recognized the necessity of the transition from a phenomenological description to its metaphysical interpretation. He also believed that the philosopher cannot stop at the description of the phenomenon, but after the event must raise the question of its ontological status. As we know, the attempt to answer this question led Husserl to a transcendental idealism. Styczeń, however, believed that only real reasons could be reasons explaining what we experience as real. Therefore, he thought that such reasons should be sought in classical realistic metaphysics. In the text in which the method of philosophical anthropology was illustrated by Styczeń by comparing Person and Act by Karol Wojtyła with the treatise On Responsibility by Roman Ingarden, we read: “As a result of the feedback shown between the starting point: description of facts and the point of arrival: statements that express the only reasons that make the facts non-contradicting, statements about facts are somehow made necessary. It must be as it is and how it appears in experience. Claims, on the other hand, become real and empirical: the reason necessary for what is real cannot be unrealistic.”⁸⁰ This is the logic of the reduction that was mentioned by Styczeń in the previously cited text. “To make non-contradictory” is nothing other than searching for reasons by moving from what is directly given in experience to what is not directly data, but a condition of the reality and intelligibility of what is given. This method was applied by Karol Wojtyła in the Person and Act, starting directly from the data of dynamisms, such as the experience of agency in action (“I can—I do not have to”), and explaining them by introducing theoretical concepts describing the structure of a person, such as transcendence or self-determination. One might add that the same applies to the very concept of the person, and here one would agree with Hume: it does not correspond to any sensory impression. The concept of a person is not an empirical concept, but a theoretical notion, which defies the empirical explanation of what man experiences in the experience of himself.

How to cultivate anthropology?

The philosopher’s task is to “organize the cognitive conditions” for intuition, i.e. to facilitate the listener or reader to see what the philosopher is talking about. This is how Wojtyła and Styczeń understood the task of the philosopher. Styczeń was not even afraid to say that a lecture in ethics should be a kind of “ethical show.” However, this expression should be properly understood. He did not want to persuade his listeners, to try to “hypnotize” them with his words or to impose his vision of reality on them. For him, philosophy in this sense is the opposite of ideology, whose supporters do not want to learn about the world but to change it, often on the basis of visions that have little in common with reality. In contrast to Marx and his students, Styczeń thought that philosophy is all about getting to know the world, and because knowledge is not always easy, the philosopher’s task is, on the one hand, the organization of the cognitive conditions for intuition mentioned above, and on the other, it is a critical study proposed by the different directions of a philosophical vision of reality.

Therefore, it is not a coincidence that Socrates is one of the characters who often appears in Styczeń’s texts. It is the Platonic Socrates, that is, the Socrates who is convinced that he knows only that he knows nothing, who tries to reach knowledge through dialogue with other people. In this dialogue, Socrates first examines the internal coherence of the views expressed by his interlocutors, and secondly, along with them, he tries to see how things really are. He does not want to convince them of anything, hence he compares his role to that of a midwife who helps in the birth of this child, which is knowledge. Styczeń writes: “The sage from Athens sees the philosopher’s mission in sensitizing his students to the necessity of ‘giving birth to themselves’ through self-discovery (‘Know yourself!’) and he himself becomes the martyr of this very matter.”⁸¹ Socrates believed that this cognition, just like an unborn child, is already present in his interlocutor, and his task, the philosopher’s task, is only to help the interlocutor realize what he already knows. The Platonists interpreted the fact of the presence of truth in the human soul, which only needs to be brought to the light, as the theory of anamnesis, but Styczeń thought that this is the result of our direct contact in reality, which the person interiorizes within himself.

Styczeń practiced the ethics and philosophy of man in a constant dialogue with his philosophical master. It turns out that the answer to the question “who am I?” is not so simple, and fulfilling the postulate of “knowing yourself” requires a lot of effort from a human being. Rocco Buttiglione, in the introduction to his book Urodziłeś się, by kochać [You Were Born to Love] wrote: “We need external masters who will teach us to listen to our inner Master and in this way teach us to decide for the freedom of ourselves. However, there is another deep ‘I’ which can help us become who we really are. To hear the voice of this ‘I’ we must lower ourselves in silence and thoughtfulness; we must find a perspective that will allow us to see our personal truth, in other words, our vocation, in the interior of the truth about every person.”⁸² Styczeń was very close to Pascal’s criticism of divertissement, i.e. the kind of entertainment that deprives man of stopping himself from reflecting on himself and helps man drown out the question about the truth about himself.⁸³

The situation of human philosophy is special. It is the only case in which a concrete being, the object of philosophical reflection, can be learned not only from the outside but from the inside as well. In his well-known article “What Is it Like to Be a Bat?”⁸⁴ Thomas Nagel showed that there are dimensions of reality that we will never know. For to know what it is like to be a bat, you have to be a bat. In the case of human philosophy, however, there is a situation in which the object and the subject of reflection are identical. Man is given to us not only as a being that we know from the outside, but also as a concrete self that we know from within. Both Wojtyła and Styczeń thought that by cultivating human philosophy, we must not take advantage of this unique opportunity of being able to “spy” the internal structure of the object of our analysis in its action. Of course, he did not want to limit the philosophy of man to a reflection on his own I to a kind of egology—that is why he believed that the results of the analysis of internal experience should be subjected to inter-subjective control, confronting them with the experiences of others and putting them, as Buttiglione wrote in the above-cited passage, “in the interior of the truth about every other man.” Following the methodological suggestion of his Master, he therefore believed that human philosophy should be a synthesis of the philosophy of consciousness and the philosophy of being. The philosophy of consciousness can in fact provide us with data which a purely objectivist—external—reflection on human being would not be able to reach, while the philosophy of being allows us to interpret this data, which does not fall into the “reflection trap,” as has happened to a large part of modern philosophy.⁸⁵

The birth of a person

So what does experience tell us about man? Wojtyła and Styczeń were primarily interested in moments of experience in which the specificity of the human being is expressed—those experiences in which we refer the concept of a person to human existence. For Styczeń, who at this point elaborated on Wojtyła’s intuition of Person and Act, the experience in a particularly “anthroporelevant” way was for him a specifically human act of cognition, i.e. an act in which a man discovers a truth independent from him. In his search for the “Archimedean point” for ethics, the closest source of moral experience, Styczeń more and more clearly perceived in the very act of cognition, which in his opinion conceals in nuce a moral charge itself, that a man getting to know the truth becomes its witness at the same time, and therefore he must not deny what he himself recognized as truth and as a truth he acknowledges. It is not difficult to notice, however, that this moment of “binding in truth” is not only a source of ethical experience for Styczeń, but also a source of anthropological experience—a moment in which in a particularly expressive way man is revealed as a person. That is why Styczeń saw his vision of a man in the words of John Paul II spoken to the representatives of the world of science gathered in the auditorium of the Catholic University of Lublin: “In truth it contains the source of man’s transcendence to the universe in which he lives. It is through reflection on one’s own cognition that man reveals himself to himself as the only being within the world that is seen ‘from the inside’ as connected with truth, connected, and therefore also ‘obliged’ to recognize it, and if necessary also acts of free choice, as acts of testimony for the truth. It is the ability to transcend oneself in truth.”⁸⁶

The paradigmatic expression of this experience is the Biblical description of the creation of man, regarded not so much as a revealed text as a particularly accurate record of human experience. Here is the first man, Adam—he looks around him, he meets the created world, but he cannot identify with any of the things around him. He discovers that he is lonely among the world of things, plants and animals, because he is different and is aware of his otherness. In other words, he discovers his “other” in the midst of the world, which is also its “higher.” This “other” comes from the fact that only man in the created world is a person, his “above” is a consequence of this “difference,” he is his personal dignity. All this is given to man in the act of knowing the world, which is also—in actu exercito—an act of getting to know oneself. In this context, we can recall the first sentences from the introduction to the Person and Act of Karol Wojtyła: “The experience of every thing that is outside of man is always connected with some experience of man himself. Man will never experience something outside of himself without experiencing himself in some way in this experience.”⁸⁷ It can therefore be said that although in the ontological dimension man is a person from the first moment of his existence, in the dimension of experience, man realizes this fact in a specifically human act of cognition—cognition in which man realizes the truth about the world and about himself, and at the same time he discovers himself as morally bound by this truth. Therefore, it is the act of cognition that is the moment in which a philosopher can discover all that constitutes the essence of being a person.

It is not difficult to note that in his reflection on man, Styczeń, with the passage of time, did not so much pass over analyzing ever newer dimensions of human experience, but rather moved more and more into the experience. Having discovered the above-mentioned “Archimedean point” of anthropology, he tried to illuminate it from various sides, constantly searching for newer, more adequate formulas for his expression. In a sense, his entire philosophy can be seen as an attempt to show the implication of Karol Wojtyła’s intuition contained in Person and Act that states that moral duty is nothing but the normative power of truth.

7. THE PERSONALISTIC CONCEPT OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY IN THE THOUGHT OF KAROL WOJTYŁA

Introduction

Karol Wojtyła’s personalism is usually considered from the anthropological and ethical aspects. This stems largely from the emphasis laid on these by the Polish thinker. In his main works, Wojtyła directly focused on examining how a person in his integrity reveals himself in action and what its presence means for a practical and ethical order. It can even be said that an emphasis on ethics prevails in the works of Wojtyła, especially when taking into account most of his writings (both philosophical and theological). These considerations, however, do not change the fact that Wojtyła was aware of wider perspectives in which the theory of a person can and should play a significant role.

One of these is the social perspective. Its appearance in the sphere of Wojtyła’s interest has its determinants. First of all, it remains a significant connection with the main areas of interest of Wojtyła. For the theory of a person is a necessary preparation for it, and the analysis of the functioning of specific groups and communities requires ethical reflection. However, the same considerations regarding social life require further reflection and arrangements that go beyond the traditionally understood anthropology and ethics. The common being and acting need separate reflections and are governed by different methodologies. Secondly, in his philosophical reflections, Wojtyła could not ignore the social implications of personalism for the very reason that his period of creativity was characterized by a specific battle for the shape of social life. The one-sided Marxist vision of community and society was to be opposed by a different vision, which strongly emphasized what the heritage of European philosophy was. Thus, social personalism was a natural response to the promoted collectivist and totalizing thinking.

The social nature of man: between the individual and the person

The awareness of the social nature of man is not a discovery of modern times, but has accompanied mankind for a very long time. Karol Wojtyła takes this seemingly obvious topic, but he wants to give it a new color. It is about the development and explication of this important claim towards showing the deeper reasons and conditions present in the human being itself. Wojtyła takes up this task in order to go beyond the understanding of the social nature of man, where he is seen unilaterally and in many cases quite superficially. These situations take place when a person is treated only as a unit of a species or an individual. A chance to break these scenarios is to see a person in a person, with all its specificities and wealth.

Wojtyła notes that in the history of philosophy, the participation of man in the community was essentially explained by reference to human nature. As he says, emphasis was a “natural position,”⁸⁸ which still had its use in other propositions, such as the assertion of a rational nature. “In this approach”—as Wojtyła says—“‘social nature’ seems to mean above all the reality of being and acting ‘together with others’, attributed in a way as if accidental to every human being.”⁸⁹ Speaking generally about the social nature of man with the concept of “nature” is the Objectivist approach, which does not sound like a fuller truth about personal existence. Wojtyła did not reject this position, but considered it insufficient.

When asked about the reasons for this insufficiency, Wojtyła indicated the absence of all that constitutes the unrepeatability and uniqueness of every human being. For each one of them not only exists and acts with others on the strength of natural inclinations, but at the same time, he does this and experiences it in his own way. Such categories as encounter, experience and the interior of the person are necessary here to understand relations with others and the social bonds that take place in the social space, and the consequences thereof. Therefore, the relational and social aspect of man is significantly conditioned by understanding the internal structure of his existence.

In Wojtyła’s thought, this in-depth understanding of the social character of man was accomplished by going beyond the objectivist understanding of the human person. It was generally indicated that the human person could not be adequately explained within the terms appearing in Boethius’s definition. The Krakow thinker pointed out that the definition of persona est rationalis naturae individua substantia was more an expression of “the individuality of man as a substantial being, which possesses a rational or spiritual nature, rather than the whole specificity of subjectivity relevant to a person as a person.”⁹⁰ Consequently, although the metaphysical approach appropriate for Boethius and continued later by Thomas Aquinas is helpful, it is also incomplete. As Wojtyła says, it defines the “metaphysical area” of a person, but this is only an initial structure that must be supplemented by reference to experience in order to reach the subjectivity of the person.⁹¹

In interpersonal and social references, the subjectivity of a person plays an important role. Man initiates relationships with other people in a specifically human way, far beyond the relations between things or other non-human beings. Thus, the relations between persons, beyond their most general, transcendental dimension, are also categorial relations. As part of their categorization, they also have a very particular specificity. Generally, we could define it in this way: a person enters into relations with other people with all his or her uniqueness and must be considered in his or her integrity—with the external and internal, with his or her objectivity and subjectivity.⁹² The externality of the person and his interiority are—in Wojtyła’s thought—understandable only in mutual communication.⁹³ As the thinker says, “I am not only ‘interiority’ for myself, but also ‘externality’, remaining the subject of both experiences—both from the inside and from the outside.”⁹⁴

The “I” – “You” community

Paying attention to the complex structure of a person has a significant impact on how a person interacts with other people. Now, if a man is approached in such a way that this complexity is not exposed, then it is easy to treat it one-dimensionally and objectively. This, in turn, would have its consequences within the meaning of the community to which he belongs. The community would then be just a collection of individuals, understood as individuals of a species. A lack of perception and a proper presentation of personal subjectivity could result in the fact that a given group would be ambivalent: it could be very helpful in the development of each of its members, as well as a threat to this development. Wojtyła develops this problem while discussing participation. He indicates it in the following way: “Man—the individual of the species—is and does not cease to be a human, regardless of any arrangement of inter-human or social relations, whereas man as a personal subject can undergo alienation in these relations, in a certain sense ‘from-humanity’.”⁹⁵ So the point is that not every community serves the development of a human-person; collectivities that do not count on the specificity of a person’s life, and especially on the uniqueness of a person and his inner world, may even pose a threat to it.

The basis of community life is the meeting of people, as Wojtyła says—the meeting of “I” – “you”. It is about the type of meeting where one person sees the other as “another I” (alter ego) and where the principle of reciprocity applies: each “you” is also “another I.”⁹⁶ An encounter built on such a specific point of departure makes each entity open to learning about and experiencing the complexity and personal wealth of the other. The meeting excludes treating the latter in a merely objective way, described in philosophical dialogue as “it” (it is about rejecting the relationship with the other person as “I” – “it”). The relationship of “I” – “you” is therefore a form of affirmation of the person and emphasizes its inherent priority in relation to this relationship and consistently in relation to a community. As Wojtyła says: “in its basic form, the relationship: ‘I’ – ‘you’ does not lead me out of my own subjectivity, indeed, in a way it more firmly plants me in it. The structure of the relationship is in a way a confirmation of the subject’s structure and its priority in relation to it.”⁹⁷

Karol Wojtyła understands a person as a complex subject who seeks transcendence and self-fulfillment through his actions. Self-possession and self-mastery play significant roles here. Meeting people who possess themselves (cognitively and volitionally) and have power over themselves (they have freedom “from” and freedom “to”) is a meeting that takes on a particular shape. It consists of the fact that not only does each person aim at the right goals (i.e. self-fulfillment), but also—due to the experience of the other (which will be discussed below)—there may be an interpersonal relationship to which each subject of the relationship must commit. This bond has a significant impact on experiencing oneself, that is, on the experience of one’s subjectivity. Wojtyła expresses it in the following way: “The subject ‘I’ is experiencing a relationship to the ‘you’ in action, the subject of which is the ‘you’, and of course vice versa. Through this action directed at the object ‘you’, the subject ‘I’ not only experiences itself in relation to ‘you’, but also experiences a new way of self in its own subjectivity.”⁹⁸

Wojtyła is convinced that, as a result of the community, the man reveals himself in his personal subjectivity.⁹⁹ In particular, he points to this dual function of “I”, which is something like that for oneself, but for the other is always “you”. The other “I” is therefore a sure disclosure of who I am to others. Of course, subjects of the “I” – “you” relationship can be considered similar to themselves only in the formal dimension, i.e. due to their structure and functions. At the same time, however, they are unique and unrepeatable people who only in their own way experience each relationship with the other. A person—even with his openness to others and his relativity—always remains something that cannot be expressed or communicated on the inter-subjective plane. In order to determine the correctness of this, Wojtyła uses the term alteri incommunicabilis.¹⁰⁰

The community has an active character and influences who the person is. But we can ask the question as to what type of impact this has. Certainly, this is not an influence that advocates of the radical domination of the community over the person talk about. Here, the person would be a derivative of the community, or even its product and creation. Wojtyła, as indicated above, assigns such a dominant role to the person. However, in the personalistic position, it is assumed that the community can influence the shaping of personal life. The problem remains to determine the extent of this impact. Certainly the community does not constitute a person, because he appears in it as an already defined metaphysical entity—suppositum. However, at the same time, the person’s becoming and developing is the formation of the so-called personal subject. Suppositum is a base for a subject and it expresses itself in it,¹⁰¹ although a personal subject is something more than a metaphysical entity. This difference is determined by the subjective and experiential sphere. In turn, experiential activity (in a broad sense, taking into account such factors as cognition) is significantly conditioned by meeting with other people and interactions in the community. Others have an influence on how I experience myself and the world around me. Hence, one can speak about a certain (though not radical) becoming of a person by the community.¹⁰²

Meeting people who lead to the creation of a community is not only the result of the activity of human cognitive authorities. If we use the term “cognition” here, then it is also about knowing goodness and value. In the formation and duration of the community, it plays an extremely important role, because the meeting of “I” – “you” has a much broader potential than the one that is interested in the theory of cognition. In the community, the discovery of values and their affirmation takes place, and thus this reality comes into the field of interest in axiology and ethics. In personalist thought, including the personalism developed by Karol Wojtyła, the discovery of the special value of the person, i.e. the so-called personal dignity, plays an important role. As the Polish thinker said, “through the community we understand what unites. In the relation ‘I’ – ‘you’, an authentic inter-personal community is formed (in any form or variant), if ‘I’ and ‘you’ persist in the mutual affirmation of the transcendent value of the person (it can also be described as dignity), confirming their actions. It seems that only such a layout deserves the name communio personarum.”¹⁰³

The “we” society

Society can be considered a form of community or a form for its further development. There are similarities between them, but there are also differences that Karol Wojtyła draws attention to. This thinker indicates that the community of “I” – “you” accentuates specific persons belonging to it, while the “we” society refers to a multitude of people. As Wojtyła says: “So potentially the relationship ‘I’ – ‘you’ is directed to all people from me, but currently it always binds me to one. If it binds me now with many, then it is not a relationship to ‘you’ but to ‘you’ as a group, although it can easily be divided into a series of relations to ‘you’.”¹⁰⁴ Thus, in the personalistic concept, this multiplicity (marked by “you” as a group or “we”) is not the anonymity of the collective, but all the time a multitude of individual, unique human persons. Wojtyła exposes this fact when he compares “we” to “them”: in this first term, the subjectivity of each member means that the multiplicity, which is the community, allows one to talk about its subjectivity. Of course, it is not grounded in being substantial (the community is not a substantial being), as is the case with the subject “I”, but a certain type of social subjectivity still exists here.¹⁰⁵

Wojtyła develops the idea of social subjectivity. It indicates that there are different “we”-communities, which are therefore different in their subjectivity. The structures of a marriage, family, nation and state are different; therefore, their subjectivity is also different. Their understanding should be based on natural subjectivity, appropriate for the person. It is she who is directed not only to self-realization, within her own “I”, but also to her societal and social dimension. The Krakow thinker speaks about it in the following way: “The human ‘I’ … in its various dimensions is ready not only to think about itself in terms of ‘us’, but to realize what is important for ‘we’—and thus social community, and therefore also on the basis of this community according to its human essence, the readiness to realize the subjectivity of many, in the universal dimension—the subjectivity of all.”¹⁰⁶ This trait of being together and becoming together is firmly rooted in a human being and shows that the person is not a monadic being, but strives for community and society.

An important issue is what binds the community at its foundations. Wojtyła indicates that the “core of the social community” is the common good.¹⁰⁷ It is what distinguishes the society from the community. Of course, society, understood personalistically, does not destroy the community: the latter plays an important role for individuals, for “I” and “you”, and at the same time belongs to the societal structure—it is in some way incorporated into it. However, a new reference point appears, and that is the common good. Wojtyła indicates that this new dimension allows for the new finding of each person. He states that “in this relationship, ‘I’ and ‘you’ find their mutual reference in a new dimension, find their ‘I’ – ‘you’ through the common good, which determines the new quality between them.”¹⁰⁸ As an example of society, Wojtyła indicates a marriage in which the common good is accepted: it does not destroy the subjectivity of the spouses and does not diminish anything in their personal status. However, the emerging dimension of “us” and the common good that is right for him or her enrich each person and create new perspectives for personal development and, consequently, for joint development (which from the self-fulfillment of spouses changes into the development and fulfillment of the family).¹⁰⁹

Wojtyła attempts to get closer to the idea of the common good. Taking the view that the basic good of every human collectivity is the good of a particular person, it indicates at the same time that the common good is the “greater fullness of values than the individual good of each individual ‘I’ in a given community.”¹¹⁰ This is not a contradictory attitude, as it might seem at first glance. There are two reasons that explain the validity of this statement. First of all, the common good cannot be understood objectively; it refers to human persons, hence, as Jan Galarowicz would say, “the common good must also include, and even above all, the subjective moment”¹¹¹ (i.e. the person in all the complexity and richness of its interior). Secondly, there is a clear, positive relationship or even a complement between the good of the person and the common good. Wojtyła’s view is about the fact that a person is not a static and monadic reality, but a dynamic and relational one. It is a transcendent reality in the sense that it constantly strives to meet the other person, and an important part of its dynamics is the manifestation of its potentiality and its interior. This subjective transcendence reveals itself on the one hand as the result of a call to read the other person and his dignity, and on the other, in the tendency to self-actualize oneself in relation to the other (in the community) and others (in society). A community built on the common good offers the person better conditions for self-actualization and realization. As Wojtyła says: “The superior character of the common good, the greater fullness of the value that determines it, ultimately consists in the fact that the good of each of the entities of this community, describing itself as ‘us’, in this good expresses himself more fully and fully realizes himself.”¹¹² Thus, while the ontological good of the person retains his priority, his actualization requires a clear reference to the common good.

Conclusion

Karol Wojtyła perceives community and society as a realities that are constituted by human persons and whose common aim is to support people. In other words, these groups are not seen as adversaries of the human person, with whom they would have to struggle for “survival” or within which they would be oriented towards self-preservation (individual, personal). Wojtyła was certainly aware of the tensions between a social group and a person and that sometimes lead to a certain type of social dialectic. However, he wanted to point to the positive role of the community and society, although at the same time a somewhat exemplary one. The presented method of thinking, however, retains the hierarchy of awareness that Wojtyła considered essential. It is about the hierarchy between a person, community and society, where it is important to emphasize that the person—in ontological and axiological terms—is the point of reference. The community and society are necessary for people to discover and implement their relational and communal nature, as well as to support each other and promote personal dignity.

8. THE PERSON AND NATURE AS THE BASIS OF ETHICS IN KAROL WOJTYŁA’S APPROACH

The first and groundbreaking publications

The concept of human nature has appeared in the academic publications of Karol Wojtyła since the beginning. In his earlier works, human nature is invoked directly from the position of Thomistic metaphysics, while in later works it is complemented with the description of man as a personal being. These first depictions of nature were included in his lectures to students conducted in 1949 in Krakow, and were reflected in his doctorate entitled The Problems of Faith in the Works of St. John of the Cross, defended in 1948 at the Angelicum University in Rome. These lectures, entitled Reflections on the Essence of Man, were first published in 1999.¹¹³

The second, and the most important, text analyzing the concept of nature is the work Ethical Handbook, which consists of texts originally published in 1957–1958 in Tygodnik Powszechny, and subsequently published together in this book in 1979.¹¹⁴ The first of these items was created after his doctorate, written under the direction of the Thomist Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, and the second after his habilitation at the Jagiellonian University (Ocena możliwości zbudowania etyki chrześcijańskiej przy założeniach systemu Maxa Schelera [Evaluation of the Possibility of Constructing a Christian Ethics on the System of Max Scheler]), which took place in 1953. The Ethical Handbook combined at least two of the articles published in Znak during this period, the first in 1959, entitled “Natura ludzka jako podstawa formacji etycznej” [“Human Nature as the Basis of Ethical Formation”],¹¹⁵ and the second, published in 1961, entitled “Personalizm tomistyczny” [“Thomistic Personalism”].¹¹⁶ Both publications completely fit and develop along the lines of Thomistic thinking. The first deals with the concept of man and the second the concept of ethics. Because in the current text we are interested in the concept of nature and the person as the basis of ethics, we will mainly refer to the Ethical Handbook, which discusses the concept of nature in an ethical context extensively. While his anthropological lectures “Refleksje o istocie człowieka” [“Reflections on the Essence of Man”] discuss the metaphysical and substantial structure of the human being, and devote much space to Wojtyła’s concept of the substantial form of the human soul, they do not directly analyze human nature as a necessity for ethics.

Because the understanding of ethics was influenced by an innovative approach to the person in Wojtyła’s work Person and Act (1969), in the ethical journals published after the publication of this work, one can therefore look for newer analyses of the relationship of the person and nature at the basis of ethics. One such text, which clearly illustrates novelty in this respect, is a sketch from the methodology of ethics written in 1972, immediately after the discussion on the concept of man in the above-mentioned work.¹¹⁷ This innovative outline of ethics, entitled Człowiek w polu odpowiedzialności (translated as Man in the Field of Responsibility, issued in print in 1991) is an outline of a new and final position on the question of the relation between the person and nature in ethics.¹¹⁸

The Ethical Handbook and Man in the Field of Responsibility present various aspects of the nature-person relationship in ethics, and reveal the development of Wojtyła’s thinking in this regard. Therefore, one can observe in them at what time and in which publications Wojtyła developed Thomism, and at what time and in which publications he wanted to supplement Thomistic ethics with new aspects.

In parts of the Ethical Handbook such as “The origin of moral norms,” “Nature and perfection,” “The law of nature,” “Humanism and the goal of man,” “Proper interpretation of the science of happiness” and others, we have a full exposition of classical ethics, realistic ethics, i.e. Thomistic ethics, also interpreted as Christian ethics. The views presented in these texts are valuable and meaningful for Wojtyła’s position on ethical issues, as they were published in 1957–1958 after his doctoral thesis and habilitation, so they are the texts of a philosopher and ethicist, in which, following his analysis of St. Thomas’s philosophy and the ethics of Max Scheler, Wojtyła developed his own concept of this discipline. It is a valuable and ethical position in this regard, since most of his next publications would cover anthropology, in which, as in Person and Act, matters of ethics and morality would be suspended for separate reflection.

The concept of nature in the first publications

The Ethical Handbook carries traces of a dispute with Max Scheler, which Wojtyła further pursued in his habilitation thesis, demonstrating that his system of phenomenological ethics is not suitable for the interpretation of Christian ethics. In this context and in the context of Marxist ethics or scientific ethics developed in Poland, so-called independent ethics (Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Tadeusz Czeżowski) or ethics as a science of morality (Maria Ossowska), Wojtyła, in the issue of understanding and explaining morality, proves the limitedness of dialectical and historical materialism as well as of empiricism, scientism or ethical emotivism. In his opinion, it is impossible to build ethics as a normative science with strict empirical assumptions; moral norms cannot be derived from the current social situation. Ethics should not be reduced to the sociology of morality. The sociology of morality is a science about morality, which does not judge, but describes human behavior, while ethics is a normative science, evaluating and normalizing these behaviors.

In the above-mentioned Ethical Handbook, he also responds to the criticism of the relationship between the ethics of natural law and religious ethics. He realizes that in both cases there are separate sources of cognition, so in this sense one can speak about the independence of ethics and about the fact that natural ethics has a source of cognition separate from religion. He refers critically to the independent ethics proposed by Tadeusz Kotarbiński. The normative content of this ethics is close to Christian ethics, but the programmatic, atheistic exclusion of the reference of morality to God in it is mistaken. Natural ethics is an ethics independent of religion, but it does not exclude; on the contrary, it asks about the ultimate goal of our aspirations, the goal of our moral perfection, and about God. Morality, by the fact that it is the most important thing in man, demands answers in terms of the existence of God, answers that cannot rule out atheism in advance. Morality essentially directs us to God, towards religion. “Religion, after all,” writes Wojtyła, “just like ethics is also the essence of human nature. … Rational human nature is the basis not only of ethics, but also of religion. … Religion and honoring God belong to natural morality. First and foremost, religion implies ethics, but above all ethics implies religion as an elementary manifestation of justice.”¹¹⁹

In the context of mutual relations between grace and human nature, Wojtyła pays special attention to the separateness of the sources of information as well as the mutual complementation of what is known by the natural forces of reason with what is accepted from Revelation by reason enlightened by faith. The source of moral principles, recognized by reason, “is simply rational human nature itself.”¹²⁰ In understanding the nature of man and his goals, reason must recognize the good, that is, “what corresponds to nature due to the purpose of its very existence.”¹²¹ Reason agrees with the reality of human nature, with the reality of the order of being: “it sees the goods and the hierarchy of goods in it—and this becomes the basis for normative judgments.”¹²² 

Regarding the relationship of reason and human nature, Wojtyła emphasizes a realistic approach to the natural law in which nature is the foundation of what promulgates reason. “We have already stated many times in these considerations,” he writes, “that human nature is a source of norms, because intellect as its power, as energy closely related to it, defines the rules of conduct according to how it discerns the ways of the human being’s perfection in the whole order of beings. From this insight duty grows. Reason determines it, but it does not just refer to this term, but draws energy from the dynamics of human existence, from the concentrated momentum towards goodness, by the will.”¹²³

Thus, human nature plays a fundamental role in the establishment of moral norms. Wojtyła uses a realistic understanding of nature, presented in a realistic philosophy. “Therefore, it should be explained,” he writes, “that in Thomist philosophy, [nature] simply means the essence of a given being, insofar as this essence is understood as the basis of all this being of activity. This approach is associated with realistic knowing that exceeds phenomenological knowledge, for the individual characteristics of human nature are associated with the real basis of these properties with the essence of being, the fact that ‘being is subject to substantial existence and operation: it lives and acts spontaneously’.”¹²⁴ Individual properties, revealed in action, are these properties, anomalies, only through a real relationship with being, as “in isolation from being and its essence, they cannot act or exist.”¹²⁵

“Action” explains Wojtyła, “actualizes the substance of being: that which the being is in possibility, it becomes in reality. And this realization of everything that a given being is in potency is inherently its purpose, because it corresponds to nature and therefore contributes to the awakening of the pursuit and activity of a given being. The being acts and becomes more itself. The fundamental good of every being is contained in it, that it may become more itself.”¹²⁶

This development of the potentiality of its nature and self-improvement takes place in the context of other beings, which are seen as good, for example in perfecting our body, and among these goods “only the moral good is perfected by humanity itself; man not only becomes simply a better person, he becomes better as a human being—he actualizes the latent possibility of being better.”¹²⁷ Thus, other improvements have their culmination and summit in moral improvement, they become “human perfections in the proper sense of the word.”¹²⁸

Human reason in its receptive function recognizes the good-goal which human nature seeks; on this basis, it formulates moral norms. “In his normative activity, he begins by discerning what a man is (i.e. what is his nature) so that he can accurately determine what he is to become.”¹²⁹ He meets a human being in the context of human activities against various other entities. “Man can only improve within the whole order of the world, the beings and goods contained in it.”¹³⁰ In the context of this broader knowledge, reason can avoid an egocentric attitude that would result in the devaluation of humanity through destructive action towards oneself, the world, and God. Knowledge of its nature should be harmonized in the knowledge of other beings and in the knowledge of the Absolute Being. Revelation plays a significant role in this broadest knowledge.

Catholicism’s interpretation of original sin, in contrast to modern philosophy, which is subject to agnosticism and skepticism, does not undermine the natural abilities of reason to know the truth about the good or to know the First Cause. It does not undermine the tendency of our will to follow moral obligations. Grace does not destroy nature, but “it is instilled in what is healthy and creative in nature, … it is focused on healing and strengthening nature, … it aims at restoring the fullness of life in harmony with, above all, the healed nature, bringing out from its reserves such energies that would never have been activated without grace.”¹³¹

It is difficult to say to what extent this type of stress on the importance of human nature for morality influenced Catholic theology and the extent to which the philosophy of the Greco-Latin world, synthesized by St. Thomas, influenced Christian ethics. Maybe both. In both sources, however, the basic role of human nature as the foundation of moral norms is emphasized. That the natural mind will be strengthened by the enlightenment coming from Revelation or from the gifts of the Holy Spirit does not detract from its natural role but shows the peak of human possibilities.

In the chapter of the Ethical Handbook titled “Law of nature,” Wojtyła is critical of the modern or contemporary ideas of human nature, which represent human nature as a source of evil inclinations. They are described as natural biological instincts, from a deterministic or even mechanistic process. The exclusion of natural law and with it the exclusion of the Legislator led to the introduction by Hume, Hobbes, and Rousseau of a social contract as the basis of morality. However, each contract can be changed. In this way, individual, subjective decisions are relativizing morality, are losing the course of events independent of man.¹³² The loss of the law of nature is inseparably connected with the loss of Legislators. “This escape from the law of nature, which is so characteristic of the contemporary positivist mentality,” continues Wojtyła, “is far more an escape from the Legislator. … Nature itself is not a legislator in that it only allows you to read the essentially rational thought and will of the Lawgiver.”¹³³

Those who undermined nature at the core of morality also challenged the Legislator and in his place set the mind itself as legislative (I. Kant), or into the state of a legislator (T. Hobbes), class (K. Marx), or race (F. Nietzsche). Wojtyła rejects the empiricist, positivist, or extremely rationalistic foundations of morality. “Human reason does not live only from itself and in itself, but it still faces objective reality, which it must understand in the most thorough understanding, decoded. He himself is some element of nature and isn’t standing ruthlessly above it.”¹³⁴

As a result of the separation of reason from understanding human nature, contemporary scientific law makes a law that regulates social relations a moral law. Meanwhile, constituted law, being a social convention, does not bind man’s conscience. It directly examines his conscience: what should be moral, what is binding for the individual, what is an identification of the constituted law. It is in nature that we see such goods as the family, a common language, or the national community as goods necessary for human development. Understanding natural reason simultaneously points to the Legislator, which is earlier than human nature, earlier than human reason—it is what has shaped these real goods and ordered them. This Lawmaker is not one of man’s constructs, he is before and above humanity, he is the ultimate guarantor of the existence and rationality of the existing order of nature.

Along with Saint Thomas, Wojtyła calls the act of creation the first legislative act. “Creation is an elementary act of caring for existence, which is manifested first of all by the nature of every thing, the source of its dynamics through all its inclinations. For these tendencies (if they have not been perverted) lead to order, order of the whole, and in this order is its good—the common good of all creation, in which humanity and in humanity everyone has some part.”¹³⁵ The purposeful orientation of every being directs him towards his development, towards his proper perfection, and through this, it frees in him the pursuit of the ultimate end goal, to God. Beings unknowingly instinctively realize the Creator’s intention, and conscious beings recognize in their nature that immanent referral to God. All beings have a purposeful orientation towards the Supreme Good, which is the target which a person knowingly takes as a referral and in consciousness and freedom performs it. If in the unconscious beings their highest Good is the fullness of their development, in the case of a man, the fullness of his development, his perfection, is complemented by the possibility of contemplating God in eternity.

Of course, human reason promulgates the law. The natural reason of every human being is accomplished by being placed in the press of good and evil, in the face of the call: do good, avoid evil. In this way, every person has the opportunity to participate in the order of being, in the order of his dynamic nature, and thus, in the mind of God—the Creator and the Lawgiver.¹³⁶

The law of his nature allows every man, if he errs in his actions, to seek a way to return to this natural order of the world and the order of human life. In some historical moments, humanity experienced the tragic consequences of its departure from the natural law, moving away from being rooted in a human rights-independent ultimate legislator. The return to the idea of natural law can be seen in the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, when criminals were tried in the name of the unwritten natural law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, in which natural law was expressed by the term “innate human dignity,” can also be considered a return.

Wojtyła summarizes the concept of human nature as being at the basis of moral norms, and it is not difficult to see that this is a living lecture of Thomistic ethics enriched by references to Christian revelation. It is even surprising that we do not find in this lecture the influence of the transcendental philosophy of Immanuel Kant, the phenomenology of Max Scheler, or the empirical and analytical influence of the Polish Lvov-Warsaw school. On the contrary, the reference to the only way of thinking and the method of the Realist philosophy of St. Thomas can be dictated by a critical rejection of the possibility of building Christian ethics in Scheler’s phenomenology and axiology. Perhaps Wojtyła, quite simply, wants to confirm in a positive lecture that the closest to Christian ethics is Aristotelian-Thomistic ethics. It is this philosophical method that allows wider and deeper methods of the phenomenological description to reach the ultimate causes of being, to reach the First Cause, the Legislator, to bring out these dynamisms of being, the dynamisms of human nature that underlie human action and are conducted at the basis of normativity and duty, that is, our morality. The novelty of the above-mentioned approach to the normativity of human nature in the terminology of classical realistic philosophy is that it is presented in fresh language, without complicated metaphysical speculations. Perhaps this is due to the influence of the easy language of phenomenological descriptions, and perhaps also to the creative abilities of the author, who expresses complicated truths in an accessible and appealing manner.

In later publications, Wojtyła would complement the role of nature and natural law in morality, highlighting the role that the person fulfills in it. In the Ethical Handbook, however, he captures man in the context of the cosmological order of all beings. We are not here to follow some post-German anthropocentrism. We have a broad perspective on human existence, in the context of other beings, and in the context of Being as such, not only human nature but the nature of every being is purposefully ordered. All of them, developing their nature, somehow praise their Creator. Man not only decodes the order of his own nature, but he decodes the order of the cosmos, “he is in the framework of the cosmic order.”¹³⁷ It is not only man who is guided by natural law, but “other creatures listen instinctively to the Creator’s thoughts, when a man listens to reason.”¹³⁸ Depending on the inherent perfection of beings, they are arranged in a hierarchy, hence the man perceiving various goods at the same time perceives the hierarchy of these goods.

Wojtyła notices the specificity of a man, especially when he emphasizes his rational nature, cognition, will and love, or his spiritual life. He recalls “Aristotle’s view that man’s happiness should be properly based on an act in which the most perfect power of human existence, i.e. reason, would have the most perfect Being as its object of cognitive contemplation.”¹³⁹ He notes that in our human nature, we can point to the peak of our abilities, the full imperfect spiritual life to which each human being is called. This fullness is an opening to what religion and Revelation bring, an opening to a personal God. The supernatural exceeds the natural and not only does it not destroy it, but it presumes it. Thus Wojtyła prefers natural ethics and similarly natural, religious human aspirations.

It can be said that in the Ethical Handbook we have an indisputable attitude of human nature at the basis of moral norms through the inclusion of human existence in the context of other beings and in the context of the Absolute Being. Various reservations about nature or natural law from the position of anthropocentric philosophy, i.e. I. Kant or the phenomenologists, as well as empirical and naturalistic currents (T. Hobbes, D. Hume, M. Ossowska) are clearly criticized and rejected by Wojtyła. Also, in the dispute about whether reason or human nature is the basis of moral norms, there are no extremely rationalistic accents in his position, because reason is understood from the side of its receptivity, from the side of looking at human nature, and its interpretation in the substantial existence of man, within the order of entities and the internal order of human existence.

Wojtyła does not simply analyze the inclination of natural human nature, he describes this nature in its purposeful orientation, analyzing the ultimate goal: man’s happiness. However, he emphasizes all the time that the intellect does not set forth moral norms from itself, but promulgates them on the basis of the knowledge of human nature, whether directly in the first act of conscience or in the form of the theoretical knowledge of who a person is.

Thus, in the Ethical Handbook, Wojtyła places human nature at the basis of moral norms; it is analyzed, and other narrowly defined terms are rejected. In the above text the author is exclusively a Thomist, and he cannot be called a phenomenologist because he declares and explicitly uses a realistic method of studying human nature.

In the article “Thomistic personalism” (1961), Wojtyła is also a Thomist, but deals more broadly with the concept of the person. He rejects the phenomenological view of a person reduced to conscious acts. In his criticism, he explains that, “according to [St. Thomas] consciousness and self-awareness is something derivative, some kind of fruit of a rational nature subsisting in a person crystallized in a unified intelligent and free being—it is not alone in itself.”¹⁴⁰ Consciousness is therefore a derivative of a rational nature. Wojtyła notes, and perhaps this is objectivist, that the objective view of the person should be supplemented with subjective descriptions of what is happening at the level of conscious experiences, moral experiences, experiences of freedom, experiences associated with action, but this supplement cannot detract from the experiences, from personal existence, from the nature of the person.

Person and nature in later ethical writings

It is understandable that in searching for the foundation of Christian ethics Wojtyła used the Thomistic concept, which since time immemorial has been fundamental and justified. He was aware of the position of the Thomists that there is no conflict between nature and person, that it is an apparent conflict. “A conflict between a person and nature occurs only then,” he wrote, “when we understand nature in the sense that phenomenologists understood it, i.e. as the subject of instinctual updating, as the subject of only that which is happening. … Nature as a source of this type of actualization excludes a person; the person, as a source of his own actualization, specifically the source of actions, that is, his acts, is above nature, in a sense opposed to it.”¹⁴¹

One can ask whether, after his disputes with modern and contemporary philosophy after his own deep and innovative discovery of the person in his Person and Act, Wojtyła continued to maintain the position about the compatibility between human nature and the person, or more strongly emphasized the person at the expense of her nature.¹⁴² Answers in this respect can be sought in a small work, written in 1972, or three years after the publication of his most important work. This work, entitled Man in the Field of Responsibility, was not published in print until 1991, but the views contained therein were vividly articulated at the moment of the publication and discussion of the Person and Act. This is an important work in ethics and, therefore, in Person and Act, Wojtyła, dealing with the concept of man, put morals “outside the parenthesis” to focus on the main problem, or the concept of the person.¹⁴³ In connection with this, immediately after the discussion on Person and Act organized on December 16, 1970 by the Scientific Society of the Catholic University of Lublin, Wojtyła, in conversations with Fr. Prof. Tadeusz Styczeń, planned the ethical continuation of his anthropological work in the form of the book Man in the Field of Responsibility, and included in the publishing plan was the above-mentioned association. It was supposed to be a work of both thinkers, a master and a pupil. In the summer of 1972, Wojtyła sent Styczeń the first draft of his work.¹⁴⁴ Later, his election as Pope on October 16, 1978 thwarted further publishing plans. Therefore, it was not until 1991 that it was decided to publish this outline of a “first attempt to organize his thoughts,” and although it was not implemented at the indicated time, it was substantively important, revealing that which Wojtyła, having developed the concept of the person, wanted to develop in ethics.¹⁴⁵ In the introduction to this outline, he recalls his previous research on ethics and anthropology: “We did not analyze morality itself in the study of a person. This is what we intend to do in this study. It will be a study of morality. … In a sense, we are going to analyze here what in the previous study [i.e. Person and Act] found itself before the parenthesis: morality as a reality subjectified in the person.”¹⁴⁶ The character of this work is defined by the first sentence of the introduction, which calls it “a study on the concept and methodology of ethics.”¹⁴⁷ This meta-ethical inclination is not detached from ethics, but serves to formulate the concept of ethics. It refers to the search for an appropriate epistemology for ethics and an appropriate methodological structure for this discipline. The first aspect is related to the articles published by Wojtyła on the experience of morality,¹⁴⁸ and the research published by Styczeń in book form: Problem możliwości etyki jako empirycznie uprawomocnionej i ogólnie ważnej teorii moralności [The Problem of the Possibility of Ethics as an Empirically Validated and Generally Important Theory of Morality]¹⁴⁹ and Zarys etyki. Cz. 1: Metaetyka [An Outline of Ethics,vol. 1: Metaethics].¹⁵⁰ Also, the first part of Wojtyła’s book mentioned above, entitled “Morality as an Appropriate Field of Ethics,” is devoted to the epistemology of ethics. The second part, entitled “Normality of Ethics and the Responsibility of the Person,” and the third part, “The Law of Nature and the Personalistic Norm,” despite their metaethical slants, analyze whether human nature, natural law or the person plays a fundamental role in moral norms. One can immediately notice from the titles of the second and third parts that in the search for the norm of morality, called the personalistic norm, the person will play a fundamental role. The title of the last part, “The Law of Nature and the Personalistic Norm,” sounds somewhat confrontational, in which the person seems to play a fundamental role.

The teleological account of the nature and effect of this teleological account, that is, the good, is invoked in the earlier part. In the description of the teleology of nature, Wojtyła argues with the utilitarianism of J. Bentham and J. Stuart Mill as well as the deontologism of I. Kant. He opposes the utilitarian restricting of this theology to strive for pleasure. He also disagrees with autonomy and the elimination of teleology in ethics. “In any case,” we read, “in his negation, Kant in some way adopted a utilitarian concept of purpose (and therefore pleasure and annoyance as the sole goals of action and human aspirations), as well as the concept of man, which according to utilitarianism is primarily a subject ‘experience’.”¹⁵¹ In order to break the morality of purposefully justified hedonism or egoism, Kant removed nature from the foundation of ethics. Wojtyła, on the other hand, introduces the teleological dimension of the person’s nature and clarifies it. Ethical purposefulness is expressed in the direction and choice of the righteous good (honestum), not the pleasant good (bonum delectabile) or the useful (bonum utile). This type of purposefulness can be understood not so much as the teleology of nature, but as the teleology of the human person. In his self-fulfillment, man chooses a good that “corresponds to the dignity of the human person and that dignity serves.”¹⁵² Morality does not conflict with both teleology and autoteleology, with self-realization, but, according to Wojtyła, it is the norm that defines the goal, not the reverse. “However, this primacy of the norm,” he writes, “grows simultaneously on the ground of teleology and, above all, human autoteleology.”¹⁵³

Thus, Wojtyła subjected some corrections to the “traditional metaphysical approach in which teleology prevailed.”¹⁵⁴ The person’s autoteleology is based on the teleology of nature, but the truth about the good introduces a new dynamism, which is the dynamism of moral obligation, personal duty, the duty of conscience, the dynamism of which is not found at the level of nature itself. “This dynamism of duty draws its strength from the elementary axiology of the person’s being. I want to be good—I do not want to be bad.”¹⁵⁵

Thus Wojtyła, next to the law of nature or natural law, whose normative expression is the principle bonum est faciendum, malum vitandum, introduces personalism as a morality-expressing norm, which is a norm associated with the person with the realization of a person expressed in the pursuit of being good as a person. The law of nature thus expresses the dynamism of being, while the personalistic norm expresses the dynamism of the moral life of a person. The dynamism of nature participates in morality, but by raising it to the level of the person.

Wojtyła metaphysically enriches the interpretation of the ideal of the norm of morality and the personal pattern, emphasized especially by the phenomenology of Max Scheler. For the realization of what is included in the expression “good as a man” concerns the values which we are to realize, in a sense the ideal value, the realization of the ideal of man. Norms such as do not steal and honor your father and mother “are in connection with the realization of a certain ‘ideal’, what a man should be in general and what this particular person should be. … You can even say: I should be x or y, because x or y corresponds to the ideal-image of a good person, hence the need to reproduce x or y in a concrete action.”¹⁵⁶

Thus, next to the interpretation of morality by the Final Cause, Wojtyła also interprets through the Exemplar Cause (causa exemplaris). “The moment of its exemplarity is somehow the deepest hidden content of the inner moment of the norm, and at the same time it seems to be the most external and explicit moment in the existential, inter-human and social order. Standardization is largely accomplished by following personal patterns.”¹⁵⁷

In this way, Wojtyła enriches the approach to morality by interpreting the dynamism of nature with the dynamism of a person. This second reality does not negate the former, but enriches it with what we discover at the level of a person’s life, at the level of her experiences of dignity, freedom, purpose, values, and moral obligations. In connection with the above, Wojtyła enriches the standard of morality, which is based on natural law, i.e. the norm bonum est faciendum, malum vitandum, good must be done, evil avoided, with additional content contributed by the personalist standard: persona est affirmanda et amanda propter se ipsam, the person as the person deserves affirmation, i.e. love for her in herself, in which the dignity of the person is revealed to us directly.¹⁵⁸

There is no doubt for Wojtyła that St. Thomas’s standard of classical ethics, bonum est faciendum, is fully justified by natural law, and that it is manifest in a synderesis of every human being in a direct and obvious way. This norm formulates a command to act and constitutes ethics as a practical philosophy. Practical philosophy emphasizes the natural mechanisms of being and how they work. It situates man among other beings and presents somehow “certain necessities” connected with the structure and operation of beings, including human existence. “The laws of nature as the norm or also as a set of norms,” states Wojtyła, “point above all to man as the perpetrator of acts and the author of moral values—he is in the world, in the multitude of objects and nature, as one of them. … The personalistic norm seeks to emphasize the special position of a human being as a person, hence his resulting separation and transcendence.”¹⁵⁹ This emphasis on the person allows us to exceed the approach of ethics as a practical science for ethics as a normative science. It does not negate human nature but brings out its personal character. He emphasizes that “human action is not in the final analysis, above all, the realization of the world, but the realization of self, humanity and the person.”¹⁶⁰ At the level of the person, the basic role is not so much the material arrangements as the interpersonal relations. “In their acts, each person contributes in the first place to the realization of the world of people in a positive or negative direction. The fact that human activity is largely co-actional (acting together with others) further contributes to the enhancement of the personalist norm.”¹⁶¹

We can say that what Wojtyła brought out for morality from the analysis of human nature in the Ethical Handbook, he enriches in his analysis of the person in Man in the Field of Responsibility. It can be noticed that in both mentioned works, he uses modern and contemporary philosophy differently to I. Kant and M. Scheler, among others. If in the first work he focused mainly on the criticism of this philosophy and ethics, in the second he tries the opposite, to use its achievements to enrich classical ethics, the ethics of St. Thomas and the ethics of natural law. This task is more difficult than previous ones, because Thomism is a comprehensive, fully developed system, and therefore not easy to modify. Wojtyła’s various steps are cautious and fragmentary, but clearly innovative.

He believes that in the ethics of St. Thomas, the good is found in the norm of morality: that good should be done was previously developed in realistic metaphysics. However, in the terminology of Tadeusz Styczeń, it was a metaphysical good (bonum metaphysicum), differing from moral good (bonum morale). Ethics assumed the good, but somehow as a discipline it was not discovered or analyzed. There seemed to be a general explanation of the structure of the human being and the formulation of the principle of synderesis as primum principium practicum as sufficient to answer the question of what is good and what is bad and why. Without questioning the necessity of metaphysical justifications for what is good and what should be done, then ethics—in Wojtyła’s opinion—should be more precise in practical terms: good should be done, good as a moral good. It should reach for a specific experience of morality to the experience of human dignity. In the area of ethics, it is about a decent good, that is, in relation to which we must have a concept of the dignity of a person who designates what agrees and does not agree with the person as a person. Ethics is focused on this eternal question of good and evil, what is and is not in accordance with man, what is morally good and what is bad, and also looks for answers to why it is so. Modern and contemporary philosophers have drawn attention to this necessity to specify the concept of good as a moral good. Necessity results from the specifics of morality, in which morality is not only the objective reality of natural law but the subjective reality, the recognition of what is good and always an original act undertaken by the will, an act of resolving solely the good in the name of truth, each act being taken as an act of self-determination, both horizontally and vertically. Normativity in ethics is specified by the principle of hoc est bonum, istud malum. It is therefore more important than in classical ethics, as a metaphysics of morality, to describe morality at the level of experiencing the experiences and acts of a person. There, morality reveals itself in its specificity, in what it is, which does not exclude reaching for its anthropological and metaphysical justification. Thus, nature and the person, the natural law and the personalistic norm, are not contradictory but complementary, but the specificity of the subjective and personal requires a methodologically constructed ethics in which what is specific to a person is presented in all its richness. Data, specifically datum morale, has its base in datum anthropologicum and datum metaphysicum.

Karol Wojtyła outlined but did not fully realize the program of ethics in Man in the Field of Responsibility. His best student, Tadeusz Styczeń, did so in his rich scientific heritage. The outline of such ethics in the publication discussed above was probably one of the basic inspirations and indications for his student on how to build personalistic ethics.

9. KAROL WOJTYŁA’S IMPACT  ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL ENVIRONMENT

Introduction

Karol Wojtyła’s thought has been greatly influential. One can take into account its influence on Polish or world culture, especially regarding Christian inspirations. This is seen, for example, in the ideas developed by Wojtyła in theology, literature and art. In this study, our task is clearly defined: we will focus only on a narrow aspect of contemporary culture, which is philosophy. That is, therefore, to provide the characteristics of a group of philosophers and modern thinkers who took certain ideas or methods from the philosophy of Karol Wojtyła. However, even such a strict task is not easy, and it is certainly difficult to precisely identify all who have found themselves influenced by the Polish thinker. For example, it is very difficult to follow all publications on a global scale that have borrowed from Wojtyła’s intellectual work or that appear to have been formulated from his polemics. An indication, however, of the main environments developing philosophical reflection inspired by Wojtyła’s philosophy will give us a vital picture of how he has inspired others to practice specifically philosophical anthropology and ethics.

The Polish environment

During the period of Karol Wojtyła’s philosophical activity, the group of philosophers who were inspired by Christian thought was relatively narrow. Basically, they were active at the Catholic University of Lublin, in Krakow (first at the Pontifical Faculty of Theology and later also at the Faculty of Philosophy) and in Warsaw, where they were mainly associated with the Academy of Catholic Theology. A certain group of philosophers were lecturers in seminaries scattered throughout the country. These figures can be considered the first readers and commentators on the philosophical works of Wojtyła, and therefore also those who became inspired by these works. In the milieu of philosophers inspired by Wojtyła’s thought, an important role was played by the debate regarding the allocation of his thoughts to a specific philosophical current. A dispute arose around the question of who Wojtyła was: a Thomist, a phenomenologist, or somebody else? Some commentators recognized him as a personalist Thomist; others as a phenomenologist or someone who has gone his own way using both Thomistic and phenomenological ideas. Stefan Swieżawski, commenting on this issue, pointed out that Wojtyła did not want to replace Thomistic metaphysics with a phenomenological description, but to show how the latter complements the former and can be of help to it.¹⁶² This lecture was accepted as a moderate interpretation both in Poland and abroad.¹⁶³ However, this debate, to a large extent, left this issue open, and some commentators still perceive Wojtyła as a Thomist or phenomenologist. Hence there are varied interpretations of his thoughts in the voices of contemporary philosophers.

This diversity applies to one more question. Some thinkers, as we shall see below, focus on certain problems or topics initiated and, in a sense, left unfinished by Wojtyła. He himself, in many places, directly signaled that his approach to the given issue was preliminary and required further refinement. These followers are trying to deepen or rethink a given issue in a new context. There are also others who focus more on the method of Wojtyła’s philosophy. This means that they take, for example, an analysis of a person using the method or some aspect of his method. Generally, it can be said that Wojtyła inspired his personalism in both material and formal terms.

In the Lublin academic milieu, one should point to those who were influenced by the Wojtyła idea, such as Tadeusz Styczeń, Andrzej Szostek, Jerzy Gałkowski, Alfred Wierzbicki, Ignacy Dec, Marek Czachorowski, Jarosław Merecki and others. The Krakow environment was mainly Andrzej Półtawski, Jan Galarowicz, Tadeusz Biesaga and Jarosław Kupczak. Their interests were directed towards a thorough understanding of Wojtyła’s ideas, the deepening of these ideas, and an attempt to refer to contemporary anthropological, ethical, theological and social issues. These thinkers noticed that the philosophical achievement of the thinker in question contains great potential for both contemporary philosophy and Christian thought, including Catholic theology as well as current debates in western culture. It mainly concerned the development and promotion of the idea of a person in the face of pressing anti-personalist trends—on the one hand an individualistic trend, and on the other a collectivist one.

Let us point to a few examples. Tadeusz Styczeń was developing Wojtyła’s idea of a person who, in the act of cognition, discovers not only the world but also himself, and through learning the truth about a person is connected to the truth.¹⁶⁴ Andrzej Szostek used Wojtyła’s understanding of a person in a discussion with the currents of a new moral theology, especially German. He exposed an idea of the person, in which he is perceived as someone who is not only a free and rational being, but has his own specific nature.¹⁶⁵ In his analyses, one can somewhat perceive Wojtyła’s confrontation of realistic personalism (phenomenological-Thomist) with transcendental personalism (post-Kantian). In his later works, as he pointed out, he made the sense and importance of Wojtyła’s personalism the subject of his analyses.¹⁶⁶ Jerzy Gałkowski used the concept of a person in relation to the issues of social life. He developed a personalistic approach to work, overcoming naturalistic approaches. In this regard, he used the personal or personalistic value highlighted by Wojtyła, his descriptions of the interpersonal relations of “I” – “you” and the theory of participation.¹⁶⁷ Tadeusz Biesaga developed Wojtyła’s realistic concept of dignity, opposed the absolutization of freedom, and applied personalistic ethics in resolving bioethical problems.¹⁶⁸ Andrzej Półtawski and Jan Galarowicz were interested in the issue of the person present in Wojtyła’s thought as part of both anthropological and ethical considerations, but basically in the perspective of phenomenology.¹⁶⁹

Foreign environments

There is no doubt that the election of Cardinal Karol Wojtyła to the Holy See (1978) decisively contributed to the growth of interest in his philosophy. However, one would think that this philosophy was not known outside Poland beforehand and that Wojtyła’s works began to be translated and published only after 1978. In fact, Wojtyła as a philosopher was already known and translated much earlier. One of the reasons for the interest in his thought was probably his active participation in the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), during which his speeches aroused the interest of participating experts. Wojtyła appeared in them as someone who was deeply rooted in the Christian tradition, but who was at the same time aware of the new challenges of the present (including new philosophical ideas). Wojtyła himself participated in various meetings and symposia on philosophy, and also published his texts abroad—it is necessary to mention here those primarily published by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka’s Analecta Husserliana.

Wojtyła’s first work, which aroused interest abroad and whose impact still continues, was the study Love and Responsibility, devoted to the topic of sexual ethics and family themes. It must be remembered that the contemporary approaches to this subject were firmly rooted in a kind of Thomistic philosophy that pointed to three purposes of marriage, of which the first was the birth of offspring. Wojtyła did not reject this vision in principle, but rather put it in a different perspective, in a personalistic perspective. The principle on which Wojtyła built sexual and marital ethics was the personalistic norm. It indicates the innate value of the person, which belongs to respect (love) because of its internal dignity. In this perspective, sexual ethics and marriage were based on the principle of love, the current approach to which was not mentioned in the framework of Catholic moral theology (it was at most implicit). This novel approach by Wojtyła aroused the interest of the great French theologian Henri de Lubac, thanks to which Wojtyła’s book appeared in French in 1965 (with a preface by de Lubac himself).

In the following years, especially after Wojtyła’s election to the Holy See, the interest in his personalism and personalistic vision of family and marriage did not diminish, but rather increased, especially after John Paul II established the Institute of Marriage and Family Studies at the Lateran University in Rome. The Institute was interdisciplinary, and therefore the personalistic ethics of Karol Wojtyła were also cultivated in it. From the very beginning of its existence, Wojtyła’s former student Prof. Stanisław Grygiel was among the lecturers of the Institute, who in his numerous publications developed the thought of his director. In theology, Wojtyła’s intuitions regarding the personalistic ethics of marriage and family were developed primarily by Carlo Cafarra and Angelo Scola.

In 1979 an English translation of Wojtyła’s main philosophical work, Person and Act, was translated by Andrzej Potocki with the title The Acting Person.¹⁷⁰ The publication of Wojtyła’s study into English in a sense contributed to the popularization of Wojtyła’s philosophy outside of Poland, although the translation itself also met with critical assessments. According to some authors (e.g. Andrzej Półtawski), Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, the editor of the publication, put too much emphasis on the phenomenological elements of Wojtyła’s philosophy, removing or changing some terms that have a direct relationship with classical metaphysics, e.g. the term suppositum.¹⁷¹ In the English-speaking world, a much greater role in the promotion of Wojtyła’s ideas was played by the philosophical writings collected in the book Person and Community:Selected Essays, translated by Theresa Sandok.¹⁷²

Thanks to the translations into English, a group of philosophers appeared in the United States who were inspired by Wojtyła’s thought and proposed different interpretations of it. They were associated with various academic centers and scientific societies. Although we are not going to indicate all those who were interested, one cannot ignore figures such as Kenneth Schmitz and John Hittinger. It is also worth mentioning the Society for Thomistic Personalism, which stresses the Thomistic aspect of Wojtyła’s personalism. A similar approach is represented, for example, by Adrian Reimers, who focuses on ethics and, especially, on moral norms based on the writings of Wojtyła, as well as the theological John Paul II.¹⁷³ In Reimers, as in many American followers of Wojtyła, a trend towards a comprehensive and complementary reading of the writings of Polish thinker is revealed, in the belief that his philosophy cannot be separated from his theological writings. Among his American defenders, there are also other interpretations and approaches, for example, those of John Crosby, who sees Wojtyła in his theory of the human person, which is limited to the philosophical field and goes more along the Augustinian-phenomenological line.¹⁷⁴

The publication of Wojtyła’s works into English and the choice of their author for the Holy See aroused interest in the version of realistic phenomenology that Wojtyła develops in his works, especially Person and Act. Among others, influenced by this approach to phenomenology, the International Academy of Philosophy was established in Dallas in the United States, and later was transferred to the Principality of Liechtenstein, and whose rector today is still Prof. Josef Seifert. Seifert was influenced by the German philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand, a student of Edmund Husserl and one of the defenders of a realistic interpretation of phenomenology. The ontological status of phenomena described by the phenomenological method is not settled by the very use of this method; as is known, some of Husserl’s pupils—including von Hildebrand, as well as Roman Ingarden—did not share the later philosophy of their master, who seemed to be heading towards a certain version of transcendental idealism. In his numerous works, Seifert¹⁷⁵ presents a realistic interpretation of phenomenology, in which Wojtyła’s analysis of Person and Act, his concept of linking phenomenology and classical metaphysics, is one of the important points of reference.

One of Seifert’s collaborators at the International Academy of Philosophy for many years was Rocco Buttiglione, author of one of the best monographs of Wojtyła’s philosophy, titled Il pensiero di Karol Wojtyła.¹⁷⁶ It is worth mentioning that Buttiglione began to study Wojtyła’s thought before he was elected pope, and in order to better understand his philosophy, he learned Polish. His book as a whole presents not only Wojtyła’s thought, but also analyzes its sources and places it in the context of contemporary philosophy (phenomenology, existentialism, Marxism). Buttiglione’s book has been translated into several languages (English, French, Spanish) and undoubtedly contributed to the popularization of Wojtyła’s philosophy in the world.

It is also worth mentioning the name of an outstanding specialist in ancient philosophy, Giovanni Reale, who in the last years of his life became very interested in the philosophy of Wojtyła and devoted several of his publications to it. Thanks to his efforts in Italian, all the philosophical works of Wojtyła appeared in one large volume.¹⁷⁷ According to Reale, Wojtyła is one of the main representatives of the third great paradigm shift in the history of western philosophy: after the henology paradigm—the first metaphysics—created by Plato and the ontological paradigm, whose creator was Aristotle, the third great paradigm of philosophy is—according to Reale—personalistic philosophy, for which the highest expression of being and also the model of its understanding is a person. According to Reale, Wojtyła’s philosophical paradigm is found to be especially convincing and worth developing.

In addition to Wojtyła’s influence on philosophy practiced in English, German and Italian, one should mention his influence on Spanish philosophy. Thinkers from this cultural circle, which includes, besides Spain, many countries of Central and South America, have long been interested in personalism. Karol Wojtyła, with his ideas, naturally found himself at the center of their attention. Founded by Juan Manuel Burgos, La Asociación Española de Personalismo as well as La Asociación Iberoamericana de Personalismo devoted many of their meetings and congresses to researching the philosophical ideas of the Polish personalist. Also, Burgos himself devoted a lot of energy to Wojtyła’s design of the person and became known and present in the philosophy and culture of the Spanish-speaking countries. He sees in Wojtyła’s thoughts, especially in Person and Act, a brilliant combination of elements drawn from the philosophy of Kant, Thomas Aquinas and phenomenology. Burgos defines the project by Wojtyła as “modern ontological personalism” and he tries to develop it himself.¹⁷⁸

Perspectives for the future

If the personalism of Karol Wojtyła is not to become only a chapter in the history of philosophy, one should consider what tasks it is to meet in the times in which we live. Let us point out, however, the wider spectrum of debates—meaning not only those inspired by Christianity—where the idea of the person appears. Among the many challenges faced, three seem to have a special meaning. First of all, it is about showing that the human person in his peculiarity “still exists.” At least two adversaries appear here, with whom Wojtyła’s personalism must be in constant discussion and even confrontation: the postmodern rejection of the subject and person, as well as the naturalistic reduction of a person to a bundle of functions of natural processes (i.e. emergents). Secondly, it is about a stronger development of the thesis about the social nature of the person, which is a condition for the existence of a community of persons (communio personarum), in the face of the progressive individualization and atomization of societies, especially western ones. Thirdly, it is about a clearer presentation of the thesis that the nature of a person establishes a moral order. Thus this unit, in a sense, discovers the order, and does not arbitrarily constitute it. The development of this part of Karol Wojtyła’s message becomes important in the face of the progressive subjectivism in morality on the one hand, and of the increasing dictates of “political correctness” on the other, which tends to set up completely new and often strange moral standards for a person.

10. GLOSSARY

Act: Lat. actus humanus. An internalized, conscious, voluntary and purposeful action of a person directed to the good that is recognized by reason. An act is a special moment of insight into the reality of a person fulfilling an act and fulfilling himself in it. The fulfillment of the act by a person is not treated as a fact of merely ontological significance. We also assign it axiological significance: the fulfillment of an act by a person is in itself a value. It is precisely a personalistic value, for the person fulfills the deed in performing himself in the act. The personalistic value consists in the fact that in the act the person himself is actualized, in which the proper structure of self-possession and self-control is expressed. An act is a concrete form of access to a person and its structures, which reveal it as a value in the individual and community dimension, because the reality of a person’s action goes beyond himself and is realized in the space between the person, affecting both the person and others.

Alienation: Lat. alienus (foreign, strange). A sense of foreignness towards something. The reason for alienation lies in the very person, being the opposite of participation, which is the foundation of the social dimension of the person. It means denial, that is, excluding the possibility of the experience of another human being as I. Man, through participation in the community, participating in the humanity of others, discovering other I’s in them, fulfills himself as a gift for others. Alienation by a person deprived of the possibility of self-fulfillment in interpersonal relationships consists of the reversal of the relation of means and ends:he is a man who does not recognize the value and the size of a person in himself and his neighbor, and deprives himself of the possibility of fully experiencing his own humanity and establishing this relationship of solidarity and community with other people for whom he was created by God. Wojtyła mentions individualism and totalism as the two most important sources of alienation in the modern world.

Body: Lat. corpus, Gr. sarks, soma. A constitutive element of the carnal-spiritual human nature, through which a person expresses their humanity in the world and participates in it. The body is the first data that we observe when meeting another human being. It is in reality a direct observation, as a reality consisting of many members associated with one another. The human body occupies the space from the outside, it has a specific shape and symmetry. However, the experience of the body in Wojtyła’s opinion is not limited only to its external appearance. The body is also an internal reality. If we are talking about the inner reality of the body, we primarily mean the body as a set of organs that fulfill their proper functions. Organs inside the body are about a person’s life, the dynamism of the flesh, which corresponds to a specific potentiality. These two views of the body complement each other, thanks to which the body is the basis for the concretization of the person. Man is a being that, like those of the animal world, occupies a body, but with the difference that man has the ability of self-determination and the ability to understand cognition. The body is a constitutional element of the human—it decides his concreteness and is the content of diversity.

Community(communio personarum): The way a person lives and interacts in interpersonal relationships, in which they complement and affirm each other. Not only is the personal nature of the relationship (personarum) stressed by the complement of a person, but it is the essential criterion for diagnosis as to whether it is an authentic interpersonal communion, in which multi-subjectivity develops in the direction of the subjectivity of the many. Community and communion are notions that are close, but they are not identical; communion concerns the interpersonal relationship between you and me.The community, on the other hand, seems to exceed this system in the direction of society, in the direction of some kind of us. The foundation of community life is the commandment of love. Members of a community, e.g. a neighbor, discover this meaning with reference to other neighbors. At the same time, it indicates the fullness of participation, which is not mentioned by membership in any community.The reference system of the neighbor, in a sense, adds to the very end what is contained in any system of a “member of the community” … . The commandment “you will love” has a thoroughly communal character, it speaks to what shapes the community, but above all it emphasizes what makes the community fully human. It speaks to what shapes the proper depth of participation.

Consciousness: An aspect of human existence, an element that co-forms personal subjectivity. It is related to the action of a person who is as human as he is conscious and free. The issue of awareness in the concept of Wojtyła is concentrated around the awareness of action and also consistently around the consciousness of the acting person. In his understanding, consciousness is not an absolute cognitive subject, but only enables the experiencing of its own effective subjectivity. Wojtyła states that acts of consciousness do not have an intentional character; therefore, the intentionality characteristic of cognitive acts, thanks to which we gain understanding of the reality in question in any dimension, seems not to be entitled to acts of consciousness;these acts are not intentional, though—what is the object of our understanding of knowledge is also the subject of consciousness. Consciousness is a form of potentiality, or a readiness to accept something that is later reflected. The basic function of consciousness is to reflect what is happening in a person and that a person is acting. Awareness, apart from the fact that it reflects, also makes an intercession, giving, to everything that it reflects, a place in the person’s own I.

Dignity: Lat. dignitas, dignitatio (dignity, majesty). The special status of human beings in relation to all other created beings. The human being has a superior position in relation to all of nature. We stand above everything we meet in the visible world. This conviction is rooted in experience, which applies both to the individual and to the widely understood human community. The dignity of the human person results from the rational and free human nature, which is about himself, self-determined for his own purposes. All human acts and creations … constitute only the world of means that man uses in pursuit of his own purpose. … This purposefulness is closely related to the truth:For man is a rational being—with the good as the proper object of free will. Man differs from things and animals by his degree of perfection, which is expressed by his ontological structure. The structure of the person includes the interior in which we find the elements of spiritual life. … This perfection determines its value.It is impossible to treat a person equally with the thing, … since he is in a sense a spirit (embodied) and not only a body, even if it is wonderfully animated.There is a great distance between the animal psyche and the human spirituality,an impassable chasm. The dignity of the person is the consequence of, on the one hand, the natural structure of the human being and, on the other, the supernatural, which has its source in God; it has the status of a specifically axiological structure. It is the absolute value of all personal entities, regardless of their physical or psychological dysfunctions, as well as their social, economic or political status. It is an inalienable and absolute value.

Fieri: An important aspect of human dynamism, through which a turning (interior) direction of dynamism is carried out on its subject. By fieri, this aspect of human dynamism can be understood … which is directed towards man alone—as the subject of this dynamism. In this sense, fieri is the complement of the initiating human dynamism of the suppositum (both the “causation of nature” and the “causation of the person”). Fieri establishes in the subject the change invoked by causation, through which it has a real dimension for the being human-person, which thus becomes increasingly “something” or even more “somebody.”

Freedom: The central element of the reality of a person and the dynamisms taking place within anthropological structures and the reflection on their own actions in the causative and moral dimension. Freedom is expressed in agency, and agency leads to responsibility. The phenomenon of freedom is connected above all with the sphere of conscious action, not something being done in a human being. The discovery of freedom is the moment that determines the experience of agency and, at the same time, it is a factor that realistically constitutes a structure (a personal act) in its structural distinctiveness in relation to everything that happens in a human being. Wojtyła does not reduce human existence to acts of will, nor does he succumb to contemporary tendencies of absolutizing consciousness, but he recognizes that the subject of existence and the human act is the entire human person who, in a conscious and free manner, is his own source of determination in morally good or bad action. The core of freedom is self-determination. Autodeterminism is at the center of this attitude. This autodeterminism is the basis of human freedom. For man, by the fact of freedom, is himself: he possesses himself and rules himself. Another feature of human freedom is choice. In the structure of self-determination, freedom is rooted in the power of deciding and choosing. This aspect of freedom, that is, the will, was recognized by classical philosophy as the core of human freedom. The will manifests itself here as the power of self-determination of the person who is connected with the choice. At the base of the will’s ability to decide and choose is the human sensitivity to values, the pursuit of goodness. The openness of human existence to values and companionship with them is a prerequisite for the proper dynamism of will: the ability to decide and choose properly.

Human experience:It is the richest experience of man, and at the same time the most complex. The experience of every thing that is outside of man is always connected with some experience of man himself. Man never experiences anything outside of himself, without experiencing himself in some way in the experience. This experience is subjective-experiential and subjective-objective. The subject-experience is realized within the human person, but it is closely connected with the objective and external one, since the one who experiences is a human being, and the person experienced by the subject of experience is a human being. The human being is a subject and object at the same time. The human experience takes place through the senses and has an intellectual character, hence every experience is at the same time some kind of understanding.

Love: Lat. amor, caritas, Gr. eros, agape. (1) Theological virtue, which takes precedence over faith and hope, consisting of love for God above everything, and includes love for his fellow men and his enemies. Love as the first commandment is especially important for the eschatological future of man. (2) A strong bond that connects people closely to each other. A deep feeling for another person, which is most often accompanied by desire. It is a virtue and the vocation of every human being, … it is not something abstractly detached from life, but on the contrary has deep roots in life itself, flows out of it and shapes it.The virtue affects the life of man, his actions and his behaviors.Love is a kind of force that is born in the interior of a human being, … is shaped in a man, embraces the body and soul, matures in the heart and will:for love to be human, it should include a person in their physical, mental and spiritual whole. Authentic love is a constitutive element of a person—the person cannot live without love.The person remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself,his life ismeaningless if Love is not revealed to him. In practical life, love is realized in relationships with other people, it is open to all people. … If it is formed deeply and reliably in its basic circles—man, family, homeland—then it also passes the test in the widest circles.

Participation: The property of a person that is a positive relation to the humanity of other people. It is the relation of “I” to “You”. In this relation, a person meets another person as a personal existence related to him. The person is a neighbor for the person as the member of a community. The concept of “neighbor” is associated with man as such and the very value of the person, regardless of any reference to any other community or society. The concept of a neighbor takes into account, that is, it has an insight into, humanity itself, which is owned by every other person as well as “I” myself. … The concept of the neighbor creates the widest plane of the community that goes further than any otherness—including that which results from membership in various human communities.Along with the analysis of the concept of the neighbor, we reach a specific fullness of this reality … which is participation. The point is to reach to the foundations that are inherent in the person. Participation corresponds to the transcendence of the person in action when the act is performed “jointly with others” in various social or interpersonal relations.The figure of participation indicates that a person acts in concert with others, retaining in this action the personalistic value of the act, and at the same time realizes what results from the community of action. It is through the act and the community that a person can improve, by the fact of realizing opportunities. Here he meets another person, another human you, who is equally called to participate in the community the same as I.

Person: Lat. persona, Gr. prosophon (mask in the theater, character, personage). Wojtyła, as the basis of his adequate anthropology, adopts Boethius’s classic definition of a person, where a person is an individual substance of wider nature, but considers it insufficient due to the reduction to the metaphysical concept of nature. In Person and Act he shows the difference between the idea of the human-person understood as a substantive nature and those who freely and consciously pursue their nature, being a responsible and moral perpetrator of his actions, and not just a passive witness to them. In this sense, metaphysics should not be considered an alternative to anthropology … . Issues of the person constitute a particularly convenient area in which we meet with existence, and hence metaphysical reflection is taking place. It is about the experience I can—I do not have to, I want to, in which the causal causation of the person is revealed. 

Responsibility: This concerns the person, the individual, free from internal or external determination. The responsible person has a moral subjectivity because he does not act in anticipation of compensation or fear of punishment, but because he has a sense of responsibility. Moral responsibility has an individual dimension, but due to the social nature of human existence, it concerns the world in which he lives and acts (family, society, professional environment, politics). Responsibility stems from freedom, it is its proper realization of humanity; for the human being, it is the authority of responsible decision-making. Man, acting consciously and freely, realizes his humanity and vocation by acting in accordance with the truth (conscience) and in reference to it. It is born, as it were, in the “transition” from knowledge to action. Responsible action, in accordance with conscience, is an integrating factor and enables transcendence; it is all tied together and, therefore, freedom of conscience, truth and responsibility are in a sense a whole.The entirety of the human interior, which, although it “does not fall under the senses,” is, however, given in a very intense experience.It is a human experience, and, even more, an experience of humanity.

Self-determination: This is a certain structure and relation proper to the person; self-determination is associated with becoming fieri. … It is the fieri of a person who has his own phenomenological specificity and points to the proper ontological separateness—in one and the other, morality is accentuated as an existential fact, characteristic of a human being. … Self-determination, which is the proper dynamic basis of this person’s fieri, presupposes such a special complexity in that person. A person is one who possesses himself and is also one who is possessed only by himself. Thanks to the structure of self-determination, personal subjectivity is constituted as a specific reality essentially different from other realities in the world. Self-determination reveals the structure of self-possession and self-rule. This self-rule, as a characteristic that distinguishes a person, presupposes self-possession and is in a way its aspect or more precise concretization.Only then can there be the self-rule that we affirm in the person when, as is appropriate, there is such self-possession.Both conditions determine self-determination.Both of them also come true in the act of self-determination, and this is the “I want” of every real human.Through self-determination, every man is currently in control of himself; currently, he exercises this specific power in relation to himself,which no one else can perform or carry out. Between these levels of human freedom, there are some relations; in the structural sense, self-possession is something basic and determines the phenomenon of self-rule, while self-determination, which is expressed in the “I want” experience, structurally assumes self-possession. What determines what is really possessed is that man has a will of his own because he owns himself.

Soul: Lat. anima. (1) An intangible element in a man, which animates the body and leaves it at the moment of death. (2) The whole of the psychological, emotional and intellectual dispositions of the human being that make up his personality. In the hylemorphic theory of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, the soul is a form of material body. The soul is the principle of transcendence and integration of dynamisms in the person. The definition of the relation of the soul to the body is certainly indirectly served by the characteristics ofsomatic and psycho-emotive dynamics, and with it the display of a certain limit which these dynamisms achieve within the overall dynamism of the human person … . This comprehensive and adequate dynamism of the person—that is, action—is transcendent in the attitude to those dynamisms.None of them identify with the act, although all of them are in different ways in it. Psycho-physical dynamics related to human corporeality reveal its spiritual dimension, which does not belong to the sphere of the psyche or bodily reactivity, but is a factor organizing the zone of dynamisms in man, as indicated by the potentiality of the spiritual nature that is at the root of transcendence, but indirectly also the integration of people in action. … Integration—as a complementary aspect to the transcendence of a person in action—tells us that the relationship of the soul to the body pervades through all these limits, which we find in experience, that it is deeper and more fundamentally from them. And this is probably the indirect verification of the claim that both the reality of the soul itself and the reality of its relation to the body can be properly expressed only in metaphysical categories.

Subjectivity (suppositum): The discovery of the human suppositum, or human subjectivity in the metaphysical sense, also contains in itself the basic understanding of the relation between existence and action. This ratio will be expressed by the philosophical adagium “operari sequitur esse.” This adagium, despite the fact that its sound seems to indicate a one-sided relationship, namely the causal relationship between action and existence, also hides the second relation between operari and esse.Since the operari derives from esse, it also constitutes—in the opposite direction—the most appropriate way of knowing this esse. From the reality of the human act, not only what the subjective and moral action is, but also who the acting subject is. A person who is a subjective witness of his own actions, through reference to his own subjectivity, reveals his ontological structures and the processes occurring in them. Operari, or the human dynamism understood comprehensively, allows us to understand man’s subjectivity more closely and appropriately.The point here is not only about suppositum as a subject in the metaphysical sense, but in the context of the suppositum so understood in terms of everything that makes man an individual and personal subject.

II. KAROL WOJTYŁA: SELECTED WRITINGS

Selected and edited by

Rev. Grzegorz Hołub

Translated by

Sydney Sadowski

HUMAN EXPERIENCE

K. Wojtyła, “Doświadczenie człowieka. Wstęp,” in K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne (series: Człowiek i moralność, vol. 4), ed. T. Styczeń, W. Chudy, J.W. Gałkowski, A. Rodziński and A. Szostek (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1994), pp. 51–71.

1. The experience of man

Understanding the human experience

This study arises from the need for the objectification of this great cognitive process, which can be described as the basis of human experience. It is the richest experience available to man and probably also the most complex. The experience of everything that is outside of the person is always linked in some way to the experience of that same person. The human being never experiences anything outside of him or herself, without experiencing him or herself in some way in the experience.

But when talking about the human experience, there still remains the fact that, above all, a person comes into contact, that is, makes cognitive contact, with him or herself. This contact is experimental in some way each and every time it is established. This contact does not go on without interruption, even when it comes to one’s own “I”—the plane of consciousness is interrupted for periods of sleep. Nevertheless, the person is still with him or herself, and therefore the experience of one’s self is still in progress. In this experience more expressive moments occur, apart from an entire sequence of less expressive moments, and they all comprise the specific entirety of the experience of this person who I am. This experience is made up of a multiplicity of experiences and in this way is their sum, or rather their result.

The phenomenalist position seems to exclude any such unity which is comprised of many experiences, and the individual experience is only seen in an impression or emotional set which the mind in turn orders. Certainly experience is something individual, unique and singular, and yet there is something that can be called a human experience, which is based on the entire continuity of empirical data. The subject of experience is not only a temporary sensory phenomenon, but also the person who emerges from all the experiences, and at the same time is in each of them (for now other subjects will be omitted).

It cannot be said that experience is only the perception of impressions and that it is only the work of the mind that shapes the “person” who remains as its object on the basis of a current set of sensory data or a number of such sets of data. The experience of the person—this person who I alone am—lasts as long as direct cognitive contact occurs, in which I am, on the one hand, a subject and, on the other, an object.

The process of understanding lies in the closest connection with this contact, which also has its moments and its continuity. Finally, understanding oneself consists of many understandings, in a sense, as the experience of many experiences. It seems that every experience is at the same time an understanding.

Experience as the basis of knowledge about man

This applies to only one person—the person who I am myself. However, the subject of the experience is also other people outside of myself. The experience of the person consists of the experience of the person himself and of all the other people who, in relation to the subject, find themselves as the object of experience, that is, in direct cognitive contact. Of course, the experience of any individual person does not reach all people, even in a community, but is necessarily limited to some of them, to a lesser or greater degree. The quantitative aspect of this experience plays a role. The more people who are in reach of someone else’s experience, the greater and somehow richer the experience is.

However, it is necessary, at the outset, to break through the course of these reflections on experience which is important not in itself alone but because of the overall problem of human cognition—that is to say, different people communicate the results of their human experiences even without direct contact with the experience itself. These result in a certain kind of knowledge and contribute to the enlargement, not the experience, of human knowledge—either pre-scientific knowledge or scientific knowledge of different attitudes and directions. Experience is always the root of this knowledge, and therefore the knowledge of the human being mutually communicated by people can somehow touch every person in his or her own experience. Knowledge not only flows from them, but also affects them somehow. Does it not distort them? In light of what has been said about communication between experience and understanding, there is no reason to think so. Rather, it must be stated that the knowledge that grows from experience is in turn a means of the multiplication and supplementation of experience.

One’s own “self” and the “person” in the field of experience

We must return to this again, as the need to clarify experience, and in particular human experience, is increasingly evident. For the time being, we do not need to explain this basic notion; we are only trying to roughly describe this rich and complex cognitive process, which we have named the “human experience.” And so, for the present and especially the further considerations in this book, of great importance is the fact that other people who are the object of experience are different to how I am myself in myself, that is, the way that every person is in him or herself.

One could even hesitate here to reflect on whether one or the other incident is rightly considered to be human experience—whether two experiences are mutually exclusive. In one of them we would experience only the “person” and in the second only his or her own “self.” It is hard to deny, however, that in this second experience we also encounter human beings and experience them experiencing us. These are different and unique experiences, but they are not exclusive. There is a fundamental unity of the object experienced despite the difference in relation to the occurrence between the subject and the object of the experience. There are undoubtedly reasons to talk about the disparity of experience, but one cannot deny its essential identity. Disparity occurs because a person is much more and very different in him or herself alone, and therefore as his or her own “I”, than any other person who is not me. Even if you accept the maximum approximation to this other person, the difference still remains. It happens that, though one may be in very close proximity to another person, how the experience is objectified, or who the other person is, is easier for us, but how this objectification occurs is not the same as experience. The object of the experiment is that every person in him or herself is unique and unrepeatable and no external relationship to any other human being can be substituted for the place of this experimental relationship, which is the participation of one’s own subject. It may be that this external relationship brings with it a number of cognitive achievements that are not experienced by one’s own subject. These achievements will vary depending on the degree of intimacy, as well as on how one engages in the experience of the other, and thus in the experience of another “I”. But all this cannot obscure the fundamental disparity between this one and unique experience, which is the experience of this person, who I am myself, and every other human experience.

Experience vs. understanding

The experience of oneself does not cease, however, to be human experience, it does not extend beyond the boundaries of experience, which extends to all people, or just one person. This is certainly due to the involvement of the human mind in the acts of human experience. It is difficult to ensure how stable the experience of the object is as an experience of the senses, because no person knows from their own human experience what they look like or what the boundaries of purely sensory experience are. This is a limitation that is shared with animals. This experience, however, is stable and it is, at best, stabilized by the individual. That is, it is the individual in which the quality of the sensory input enables focus (in this way, for example, the dog or horse distinguishes his “man” from someone else). The stabilization of the proper objects of experimental human experience is essentially different—it goes through mental distinctions and classifications. The strength of this is that the stability of the experience of one’s own “self” is maintained within the limits of the “human” experience, which in turn allows one to overlap one’s own experience with another’s experiences.

Such interference of experience, which is the result of the “quality” of the stabilization of the object, is in turn the foundation for shaping the knowledge of man on the basis of both the experience of the man who is me and the experience of any other man who is not. It should be noted that the stabilization of the object itself by reason of experience is no evidence of a priori cognition. It is only proof of the indispensable part of the human understanding of the intellectual or the mental, in the formation of the experimental acts or these direct cognitive encounters with objective reality. To him, we owe the sameness of the subject of the human experience in both cases, that is, both when the subject of that experience identifies with the object and when it differs from it.

Simultaneous internal and external aspects of human experience

Sameness should not obscure disproportion. The reason for disproportion is that it is only in relation to this one person, who I am, that there is also an experience from within (inner experience), not referring to any other person except me. All other people are encountered only as experience from the outside (external experience). There is of course the possibility of yet another experience outside the experience of communication with them, which in some way provides what the object of their exclusive experience from the inside is, but the same inner experience is not transferable beyond one’s own “I”.

Yet this circumstance in the whole of our human cognition does not cause a split, and as a result, the “inner man,” who experiences only his own “self,” would be different from the “outer man,” and that would be any other person except myself. Other people do not remain for me only some “exteriority,” with respect to my own “inner self,” but the overall knowledge of these aspects complement each other and align themselves, as well as the same experience in both their forms, i.e. as the internal and the external, working for the benefit of that complement and alignment, not against it.

So above all, I myself am not only an “internal” but also an “external” experience, remaining the subject of both experiences—from the inside and from the outside. Every other person outside of myself, although he is for me an object of external experience, does not, however, fall into the whole of my cognition as the “outer” itself, but also has its own interior. Although I do not experience this interior directly, I know about it—I know about people in general, and with regard to the individual sometimes I know very much. Sometimes this knowledge on the basis of a specific contact passes as if to some kind of experience of someone else’s interior, which is not the same as the “inner self” experience, but also has its own empirical qualities.

All this must be kept in mind when we talk about the human experience. It is impossible for this experience to be artificially separated from the entirety of cognitive acts that have a human being as an object. There is no way it can be artificially cut off from the intellectual factor. The entire set of cognitive acts transmitted to the man, both to the one which I am and to everyone apart from me, has an empirical character and at the same time an intellectual one as well. One is in the other, one affects the other, and one uses the other.

In this work it is important to constantly keep in mind the overall human experience. The incompatibility of the human experience mentioned above does not bring about a cognitive split or irreducibility. We cognitively venture deep into the structure of man, without fear that the various aspects of experience will mislead us. It can be said that, above the complexity of the human experience, its basic simplicity prevails. And the “complexity” of this experience simply indicates that the whole experience, and hence the knowledge of man, “consists” of both the experience that each of us has in ourselves and the experience of other people. That is an external as well as internal experience. All this “consists” of the knowledge of one whole, rather than causes “complexity.” The conviction that we set ourselves in this study, that human experience is fundamentally simplistic for all cognitive tasks, is rather optimistic.

2. Knowing a person on the grounds of human experience

The empirical basis of nonidentity with a phenomenological basis

In the course of the previous argument, there is certainly a need for a closer explanation of how—in terms of human experience—we understand “experience” in general. It is clear that we do not understand it in a purely phenomenalistic sense, as it was once held and as it continues to be held in the wide circle of empirical thought. The empiricalist position, which we adopt here, does not have to, nor can even be identified with, the phenomenal concept of experience. Bringing the sphere of experience to the function and content of the senses themselves produces deep contradictions and misunderstandings. This can be illustrated by the example of this object of cognition that is of interest to us in the study here, i.e. man. If we adopt a phenomenalistic standpoint, we must ask ourselves: what in this case is given to me in a direct way? Is it only that some fall under the “surface” of the senses of this being that I call a person, or the person himself? If so, how far in regard to their own “I” as a person? It would be a little difficult to assume that some closely unspecified set of sensory qualities which has not already been given to the same person is given directly in—or rather to—that same person; something that is not already present in the person and his or her conscious action, that is, in his or her acts.

Departure from the fact of the “action of the person” given in the phenomenological experience

Experience is undoubtedly related to some area of facts that we are given.¹ Such a fact is certainly a dynamic of the totality of “the action of the person.” In this study, we come from the perspective of this very fact, which occurs very frequently in the life of every human being, and which is our primary focus. If we multiply it by the number of people, we will receive countless facts, and thus a vast wealth of experience.

Experience also points to the directness of cognition alone, to direct cognitive contact with the object. It is true that the senses remain in direct contact with the objects of reality that surround us—precisely with these various “facts.” It is difficult to assume, however, that only an act of the senses addresses these objects or facts directly. We must state that an intellectual act is at least participating in the directness of this conception of the object. Directness as an experimental feature in cognition by no means negates the otherness of substance in relation to a purely sensory act, nor its distinct origins.

But these are specific problems of cognitive theory, which we will not go into here. At the moment, it is a cognitive act as a concrete whole, to which we owe, among other things, the incorporation of the fact of “human acts.” It is impossible to agree with the fact that experience is limited in terms of the “area” to a set of sensory content that is unique and unrepeatable, and that the mind is waiting for the content as to what to “do” with the object, giving it the name “act” or “person and act.” On the other hand, it seems that the mind is engaging in the experience itself, which makes the same direct contact with the object, albeit in a different way.

Act as a specific moment of insight into a person

Therefore, every human experience is at the same time an understanding of what I experience. It seems that such a position is opposed to phenomenalism—the proper phenomena, which above all accentuate the unity of the act of human cognition. Such a perspective is also crucial for the study of the person and act. We stand in the position that action is a particular moment in the perspective—i.e. experience—of the person. Of course, this experience is at the same time a strictly defined understanding. It is a perspective based on the intellectual fact of the “human act” in all its myriad occurrences, as already mentioned above. The fact is that the “human act” in the fullness of its experiential content can be understood in this way, namely it is allowed to be understood as an act of a person. The entire content of the experience reveals this fact to us in a certain way, and not in another—it reveals itself with its obvious self. What does “obvious” mean in this case? First of all, it seems to point to the essential property of the object’s disclosure, or its manifestation, of the cognitive trait or characteristic. At the same time, however, obvious means that the understanding of the “human act” as a person’s action—or better, as a whole “person-act”—finds complete confirmation in the content of the experience, that is, in the content of the fact of the “human act” in its innumerable occurrences.

However, it has been stated that the act is a specific moment in the perspective of each person. This statement more closely defines the relation to the facts on which this study is based, and it also determines the direction of experience and understanding that the study itself is expressing. Understanding the “human act” as a dynamic conjunction of “person-act” is fully covered in experience. The specificity of experience is also not disturbed when this “human act” forms the “person’s act” objective. There is, however, within this—though expressed in a different way—the intersecting problem of the proper relation between “person” and “act.” This is made evident in their close correlation, semantic relevance and interdependence. The act undoubtedly is action. The action corresponds to different people. However, we cannot firmly attribute the action, which is an act, to any other person—only to one singular person. In this perspective, the act presumes the person. Such a view was held in the various fields of knowledge that were subject to human action—in particular, this approach was taken in ethics. It was and is the science of action, which involves the person: the human being as a person.

In the present study, however, we intend to reverse this approach. It bears the title Person and Act, but it will not be a study of the act that makes the person. We will adopt a different approach to experience and understanding. This will be the study of the act which reveals the person: the study of the person through action.² For such is the nature of the correlation inherent in the experience, in fact, the “human act,” which is a special moment that discloses the person. It allows us to look at its essence and most accurately and most fully understand it. We experience man as a person, and we are convinced of this because he takes actions.

The moral property of human acts

This is not the end. Experience, insight and also the intellectual activities of people in and by action originated specifically from the fact that the acts have moral value. They are morally good or morally bad. Morality is their intrinsic property, as if there is a particular profile—not known in action—which assumes other people acting outside of the person. Only the action performed by an acting person, we have found, deserves the name “act” and is characterized by morality.

And that is why the history of philosophy is a spectator of the eternal meeting of anthropology with ethics. A science that has set itself the goal of thoroughly examining the problem of good and moral evil—that is, ethics—can never abstain from the fact that good and evil are only in action and through it become a human act. And that is why ethics, particularly in the traditional sense, has very diligently dealt with the act and the person. Examples can be provided by both Nicomachean Ethics and the Summa Theologica. And although in modern philosophy, especially in modern times, it is possible to see the tendency to treat ethical issues with a certain separation from anthropology (psychology or the sociology of morality are in this area), the complete removal of the anthropological implications from ethics is impossible. For instance, positivists’ participation in this phenomenon, such as Sartre’s L’être et le néant, seems to be much greater than that of the studies of the Anglo-Saxon analysts.³

Revealing the person through the act and through the moral value of the act

It has been said, however, that ethics essentially presupposes that a person’s act has direct moral value. In the present study, however, we wish to go in the opposite direction. Actions are a specific moment of perspective, and therefore an experience of the person. In a sense, they are the most appropriate starting point for understanding their dynamic essence. Morality is an intrinsic part of these acts and in a more specific way leads to them. Moral values do not interest us here for themselves—that is an ethical question—but we are most interested in the fact of their becoming an act, their dynamic fieri. It is even more profound and revealing to us than the act itself.

Thanks to this aspect of morality—it could be called a dynamic or existential aspect—we are able to understand the human being more precisely as a person. And this is the real purpose of our investigations in this study. Therefore, from the integral experience of man, we cannot knowingly in any measure isolate ourselves from the experience of morality. The experience of morality in its dynamic, existential aspect is, in fact, an integral part of the human experience, which, as we have stated, is a broad understanding of the person. The experience of morality must be of special interest to us, because moral values—good and evil—are not only the intrinsic property of human deeds, but it also must be realized that a person as a person through morally good or evil deeds himself becomes good or evil. Dynamically, that is, existentially speaking, one can say that both the point of departure of these values and their point of arrival appear to be the person. It is more than just a “pure” act. It would seem that abstracting the human act from moral values would be artificial, detaching us from its full dynamics.

The combination of human experience with the experience of morality on the basis of anthropology and ethics

So this study will not work in the field of ethics. It does not assume the person, it does not imply the person, on the contrary—it is oriented towards an explication of the reality that the person is. The source from which we derive knowledge of what the reality of the person is will be a more specific source—that is, morality in the dynamic or existential aspect. In this context, we will try to respect not only the traditional connection between anthropology and ethics, but the real object of the unity of coherent experience: moral experience with human experience. This is the basic condition of the perspective of the person and its successive understanding.

Exclusion before the parentheses of the ethical issues

In terms of the relationship between anthropology and ethics, it is possible to grasp it by resorting to methods used in mathematics—in the same way that numbers are treated outside parentheses. The elements of mathematical activity that are somehow inherent in all other elements are separated by parentheses in the same way that all the other elements which are in some way similar remain within the parentheses. Exclusion before the parentheses is to facilitate the operation itself, but does not have the purpose of rejecting what is in front of the parentheses, or of breaking the ties between what is in front of the parentheses and what is in them. On the contrary, this exclusion further exposes the presence and meaning of the excluded element in the whole operation. If it were not excluded before the parentheses, it would only be hidden in other elements of the operation. As a result of the exclusion it becomes clear and visible.⁴ So also the problem of the “person–act,” which has traditionally been embedded in ethics. By a specific exclusion of ethics from the parentheses, it can reveal itself not only in its own reality, but also in the richness of human morality.

3. Stages of the understanding and interpretation of direction

Induction as an expression of semantic unity

We have found that the relation between: “person–act”—or, more strictly, a person’s view of action—is made on the basis of human experience. The human experience “consists of” an innumerable number of facts, among which, especially importantly for us, are the facts of “the human act.” Through these facts we are able to make a specific discovery about the person through the act. All these facts show—besides their multiplicity, that is, the complexity of quantity—the complexity that was already mentioned earlier: namely, that the data is from the outside. It is in all the other people outside of myself and there is also data from within that is based on my own “I”. Passage from this multiplicity and the complexity of these facts to their sameness—which is what has been previously defined as the stabilization of the object of experience—is the work of induction. At least it seems to be an inductive function of the mind as understood in the thought of Aristotle.⁵ Modern positivists differ from this view, for example, J. Stuart Mill, who sees induction as a form of command, while, according to Aristotle, it is not yet a form of command as there is no reasoning. It is the mental approach of semantic unity in the diversity and complexity of the phenomenal. Referring to previous statements about human experience, it can be said that induction leads to this simplicity of the human experience in all its complexity. As the experience of man is shaped from the person’s view through action, that view takes in all the simplicity of experience, becoming his expression. So now, from the person’s perspective, we come from a multiplicity of experiential facts to their sameness—that is to say, in every “person’s act” there is “the same” relation: “person-act”, which the same person evokes through action. The sameness is as much as the unity of meaning. Access to this unity is the work of induction, because the experience itself leaves us with a multiplicity of facts. There is also a wealth of facts with their diversity, each of which is singular, but the mind embraces them all in the unity of meaning. By processing this unity, it is possible to surpass experience. At the same time, however, the person continues to understand this richness and diversity. The inclusion of semantic unity is not a departure from this experience of richness and diversity (as the abstraction is often incorrectly interpreted). For example, on the grounds of human experience, on the basis of all the facts of the “human act,” the mind in this essential understanding remains open to all the richness and diversity of the given experience.

Reduction as the “exploitation” of experience

This also seems to be explained by the fact that with the understanding of the “person-act” relationship emerges the need to translate this relationship, the need to explain it. Induction paves the way for reduction. This study arose as an expression of the need for the interpretation or clarification of the rich reality of the person given to us with actions—and through actions—in the experience of the person. Assume, then, that the point is not to demonstrate or prove that a person is a person, that human activity is an act. Let us assume that this is already given in the experience of man: the reality of the person and the act is, in fact, embodied in every “human act.” There is, however, a reference to some basic understanding of the person and the act and the need for a more comprehensive explanation of this reality. The experience of man not only reveals this reality to us, but also raises the need for its explanation and at the same time creates the basis for it. The wealth and the diversity of experience constitute the provocation for the mind, in order to comprehend the reality of the person and the act and to attempt to understand how to understand it most thoroughly and explain it most fully.

This, however, can only be done by getting deeper into the experience, into its content. This allows the person and the action to be taken from a place of darkness. They become increasingly full and more comprehensive, the mind becoming clearer. The translation or reduction of understanding constitutes a kind of utilization of experience. One should not incorrectly comprehend the word “reduction”: this is not about reducing in the sense of decreasing or limiting the wealth of the object experienced. It is about its consistent exploration. The exploration of human experience must be a cognitive process in which a constant and homogeneous development of the original perspective of the person in the act and through the act is made. This perspective must be consistently deepened and enriched during the entire process.

From reduction and interpretation to the theory of human praxis

In this way we can see the tendency toward the interpretation of the person and the act in this study. Induction is due not so much to objectification as it is to inter-subjectivization, which is essential for this study: the reality of the person and the act appears as an object that everyone can look at regardless of the subjective entanglement in which the object is partially located—partially because part, and this is a very important part, of human experience is the experience of one’s own “I”. One can say that for each relationship: “person–act” is primarily an experience, a subjective fact. By induction, it becomes a topic and a problem. At that time it enters the area of theoretical inquiry. An experience of, that is an experiential fact of the relation: the “person–act” is at the same time what the philosophical tradition has defined by the term praxis. It is also accompanied by the “practical” understanding that is sufficient and necessary to understand the person, to live and act consciously. Also, the direction of the understanding and interpretation of the results by and allowance of this praxis. It is not about how to act consciously, but what a conscious action or act is and how this act reveals a person in its full and comprehensive understanding. This interpretative direction of this study has been obvious from the outset. However, it should also be taken into account with respect to the moment of praxis, the so-called practical knowledge, which is traditionally associated with ethics. We have previously stressed that ethics only implies a person, while in this study it is about its presentation and interpretation.⁶

Purpose of interpretation: Adequate understanding of the reason of the subject

That is why this study is a reductive one (has a reductive character). The word “reduction” does not indicate, as has already been pointed out, limitation or minimization; reducere is the same as “to reduce”; to reduce is a reason or basis—that is, to translate, clarify, or interpret. In explaining we go farther and farther into the object, which is given to us in experience—as it is given to us. The richness and diversity of experience stand open before us, as does its complexity. Induction and the associated inter-subjectification of the person and act in no way obscure the richness and complexity that the mind is. It is looking for the right reason. The reasons that explain the reality of the person and the act comprehensively and deeply are an inexhaustible source and constant help.

It is not about the abstract but about penetration into the reality that actually exists. The explanations for this reality must correspond to the experience. Thus, reduction—not only induction—is immanent to experience, not ceasing to be in relation to it in a way other than induction: it is transcendent.

In general understanding, it is immanent to human experience and at the same time transcendent to it. Not because experience is an act and a sensory process an understanding and translation, but because of the essential nature of both—to “experience” and “understand” or “translate” (which assumes understanding already).

In translation or interpretation, the point is that the intellectual image of the object is made adequate, in order to “match” the object. That is, to capture all the explanations of the object that translate to capture it correctly, with the proper proportions between them. This largely depends on the accuracy of interpretation. In this also lies the difficulty.

The concept of man as an expression of the understanding and interpretation of an object

It is also difficult to comprehend the concept by which we understand, in this case the very expression of the maturing of the initial insight of the person in the act to a comprehensive interpretation. It is not just the inner conviction that a person who acts is a person, but also that he or she should be mindful of the “outside” (i.e. this study) in order to be fully communicative. This concept is formed with the understanding of the subject and takes the form needed to make it understandable—as completely and comprehensively as possible—and communicable to other people so that they can understand it. After all, human knowledge as a social fact is shaped by the mutual communication of understanding.

The difficulty of interpretation and the concept of man joins the previously signaled disparity, which lies in the human experience and thus, indirectly, in terms of relationships: “Person–act” that are carried out on the basis of this experience. It is clear that this relationship needs to be visualized differently on the basis of one’s own “I”, within the inner experience, rather than within the outer experiences, which are a result of other people outside of the man that I am. The ways of interpretation, as well as the concepts of person and act, arise from the problem of merging those understandings that emerge from such an incompatible experience. Addressing this problem, trying to properly merge both aspects of human experience in a person’s concept, is one of the main tasks we set ourselves in this study.

4. The proposed concept of the person and the act

An attempt to reconstruct human subjectivity

If this disproportionate human experience, which we draw from the beginning, is the difficulty of the interpretation and concept of man, then it must be acknowledged that it creates a special opportunity in this field and opens up a rich perspective. On the basis that the overall human experience appears to us through the act of a person’s action, the experience of the person comes not only from the outside, but also from the inside. It comes not only as a human being—an entity—but also in the whole experimental subjectivity—as “I”, and therefore it opens up the possibility of the interpretation of the person as an object of our experience, which at the same time reproduces the subjectivity of the person. This is essential for the concepts of person and act that we intend to present in this study.

I dare say here that a man with a significant experience for him—and only for him—splits the aspects of interiority and exterior, and seems to be at the root of these mighty splits of mainstream philosophical thought, the objective and subjective views, the philosophy of being and the philosophy of consciousness. Bringing these great divides to the two-aspect nature of human experience, to the duality of the data of that experience, would of course be an over-simplification of the matter. We do not intend to take that direction of thought into consideration in this study, which has a strictly defined subject. Nevertheless, from the point of view of this particular topic, from the point of view of the reality of the person and of the act that we try to understand and interpret in the context of human experience (“human action”), the conviction must arise that any absolutization of one of the two aspects of human experience must give way to the needs of their mutual relativization. If one asks why this is so, we will answer that this is due to the very essence of this experience, which is the human experience. Human relationships, through the mutual understanding of both aspects of experience, also rely on the building of the grounds of human experience (“human action”), the concepts of the person and act.

The aspect of consciousness

Such a statement immediately indicates that the analyses envisaged in this study are not intended to be carried out on the plane of consciousness alone—but we intend to do so in a clearly outlined aspect of consciousness. When the act appears in a particular moment of the person, as has already been said, it is known that it is not merely an act as constituted in consciousness, but a dynamic reality that simultaneously reveals the person as an actionable being. In this sense, we intend to deal with the act in all analyses of this study, and in this sense we intend to expose the person. At the same time, we fully realize that this act, as a person’s specific insight—just like a person, which he exposes in a particularly significant way on the grounds of human experience, especially inner experience—, is always manifested through consciousness. Therefore, the relation of “person–act” must be considered in the aspect of consciousness. While it is obvious that the reason for which the act—actus personae—is a conscious action cannot be reduced to this, it means that it appears to us in terms of consciousness.

Thus, the first task we should undertake in this study is to consider the interrelation between consciousness and the person’s perfection, that is, what constitutes the essence of the dynamics of the human act. By penetrating into this rich experimental whole, in which a person is more and more revealed through action, we discover that the person reveals a specific transcendence in his own doing—and we try to subject him to the most thorough analysis.

Transcendence vs. integration of the person

To inspect the transcendence of the person in action is like the main body of experience to which our entire concept refers, because we find in it the primary source of the conviction that the man who acts is the person, and his action is a real actus personae. Of course, the theory of the person as a being can be elaborated more fully and thoroughly, but in this study, it is above all a matter of extracting from the experience of the act (“the person acting”) of all things, as evidenced by man as the person he presents.

The basic intuition of the transcendence of the person in action at the same time allows us to see the moment of the integration of the person in action as complementary to transcendence. Integration essentially determines transcendence in the overall psycho-somatic complexity of the human subject. The rest of our study is devoted to the analysis of this complexity, the integration of the person. We are not so much concerned with the exhaustion of a vast subject, but about strengthening a basic intuition. Integration as a complementary aspect of the transcendence of the person in action strengthens within us the conviction that the category of person and act is the proper expression of the dynamic unity of man, based on ontic unity. This study does not intend, however, to undertake an analysis of the latter, but to look as closely as possible at the elements and problems that are relevant to it. This is an approximation that will allow us to take full advantage of the experience and phenomenological view of man, as we consider the specificity of the concepts of the person and act intended in this study. The last chapter of the book, “The Outline of Participation Theory,” introduces us to a different dimension of the “human act” experience, which must be emphasized here, but the full analysis of which is not undertaken in this study.

Meaning of the personalistic issue

The entirety of the investigations and analyses contained in this study reflects above all the great current of personalist issues. It is difficult to deny that this problem is of fundamental importance to every human being and to the ever-growing human family. Constant reflection on the various directions of this type of development in quantitative terms, and at the same time the development of culture and civilization, with all its inequalities and dramas, gives rise to a living need to practice the philosophy of the person. It is hard to resist the impression that the multiplicity of cognitive efforts directed at distances beyond the sum of human efforts and achievements are focused on it. Perhaps it is not the problem of the cognitive efforts and accomplishments, which—after all—are known to be numerous and more and more detailed. Maybe it is just man who is still waiting for a new insightful analysis, and above all a new synthesis, which is not easy. The explorer of so many secrets of nature must himself be constantly re-discovered. While still in some way an “unknown being,” a new and ever more mature expression of essence is demanded.

And besides—because he is the first, and the next most frequent object of experience, as was seen above—he is also prone to ordinariness. He faces that which will become for himself too ordinary. And this danger must be overcome. This study is also born of the need to overcome this temptation, which is born of the wonder of the human being, which, as we know, is the first cognitive impulse. It seems that such wonder—which is not the same as admiration, though it has something of it in itself—is also at the beginning of this study too. Wonder as a function of the mind becomes a question system, and a circle, a system of answers or solutions. This not only develops the topic of thinking about man, but is also aimed to satisfy a need of human existence. Man cannot lose his proper place in this world, the place which he himself formed.⁷

The idea is to touch human reality at the most appropriate point—the point which indicates the human experience and from which man cannot withdraw without feeling that he has lost himself. In taking this work on, we are aware that it has already been repeatedly looked at and will be undoubtedly be undertaken many more times in the future. The reader will easily identify in this study all dependencies and borrowings, all these continuations of the great heritage of human philosophy, which inevitably must enter into every new study on man.⁸

This work is not undertaken as a commentary or even on a “systemic” basis. It is an attempt to understand the subject, an attempt to analyze in order to find a synthetic expression of the concepts of person and act. Above all, that we strive to understand the human person for itself seems to be essential to this concept in order to respond to this challenge, which brings the human experience in all its richness as well as the existential problems of man in the modern world.⁹

PERSONAL STRUCTURE OF SELF-DETERMINATION

K. Wojtyła, “Osobowa struktura samostanowienia,” in K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne (series: Człowiek i moralność, vol. 4), ed. T. Styczeń, W. Chudy, J.W. Gałkowski, A. Rodziński and A. Szostek (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2000), pp. 421–432.

Throughout this paper I would not only like to discuss the issue that seems to me to be crucial for the concept of the human person and for the creative pursuit of the thought of Saint Thomas in this field against the background of the many directions of contemporary thought, especially phenomenology, but I would like to simultaneously speak about the state of this issue among contemporary Catholic philosophers in Poland. Here I take as a starting point the discussion which developed after the release of my book bearing the title of Person and Act. This discussion was initiated by a meeting of professors of philosophy in December 1970 at the Catholic University of Lublin, and continued through a series of written statements (about 20) published in Analecta Cracoviensia. The discussion was attended by representatives of several Catholic academic centers, primarily Lublin, Warsaw and Krakow, representing slightly different philosophical orientations. The discussion put a strong emphasis on the methodological side of the problem, but there was no shortage of statements about the theory of the person or even the application of the theory in pastoral care, pedagogy or modern psychiatry. To simplify, one could say that representatives of the Lublin contingent were primarily interested in the methodological refinement of the ideas of St. Thomas, and, in the case of a certain translation of that thought into modern language, the representatives of the Krakow community were more interested in the possibilities of the modern reading of the ideas of Thomas in the light of properly understood phenomenology. The study of Person and Act also caused some interest among Marxist writers who occasionally expressed their opinions about it, although they did not participate in the discussion mentioned here.

This information may also serve as a kind of introduction to the problem which I intend to present here. The problem of the personal structure of self-determination is at the center of my study, Person and Act. By describing it here, I would like to emphasize at the same time the Polish connection, i.e. with the Polish philosophical community, with their interests, and with creative explorations, which are apparently referring to the European trends. By joining these streams of thought, Polish science has its own native profile, which sometimes makes itself known in the wider “market” of philosophical creation (i.e. when it was about the work of logicians from the Lvov-Warsaw school, about the phenomenology of R. Ingarden from Krakow), and—as it does every day—as it increasingly shapes the Polish intellectuals’ culture in their own homeland.

1.

After this initial information, I will proceed to the topic.

In order to penetrate into the personal structure of self-determination, we must start from human experience as it is broadly understood. Human experience, of course, cannot be understood phenomenally—this understanding assumes a cognitive theory in which we accept the inner cessation of cognition between the functions of the senses and the mind and between their sensory and conceptual contents. Without denying the otherness of these functions and the corresponding content, it must be stated that human cognition has an organic (not merely organizational) unity. The first and fundamental step in human learning is always an experience which, according to the dual structure of the knowing subject includes not only an element of the senses, but also a mental element. For this reason, it can be said that human experience is always an understanding. It is at the same time the beginning of the whole process of understanding, which is shaped by the correct pathways, but always in relation to that first stage, i.e. to experience. Without this, there is no possibility of a consistent realism in philosophy and science. The image of the world that we create could then be fundamentally inconsistent with reality.

The same applies to the person as an object of philosophical anthropology. The basis of his understanding must be sought in experience—and in a full and comprehensive experience that is free of any system a priori. As regards the analysis of the personal structure of self-determination, the point of departure is the experience of the person, and in particular of the human act which includes a significant and particularly important “experience” with moral good and evil, which can be specified as an experience of morality. Nor can both of these experiences—the human act and morality—completely separate, although one can reflect more on one than the other. In the first case, a philosophical reflection will lead us toward anthropology, in the second, toward ethics.

The experience of human action focuses on the fact of the experience that “I act.” Each time, the act is completely original, unique and unrepeatable. Nevertheless, all the facts of “I work” include their proper sameness both in the experience of the person him or herself, as well as in the inter-subjective dimensions. This distinct distinction between the “happening” in the subject and the “action” of the subject—that is, the act—allows us to capture, in turn, the overall experience of the person, a moment that clearly distinguishes action, i.e. the act of a person from everything that is in it. In a moment we will define self-determination.

2.

The first definition of self-determination in the experience of the human act consists of the expression of the personal ego in the ‘I’: “I am acting” means “I am the cause” of my action, the actualizing of the subject—unlike anything in me that is “just happening,” because then the experience of the personal “I” does not happen. The manner in which an actor acting in relation to his actions is closely connected with the perception of his responsibility for action is above all the content of the axiological and ethical actions. It all comes in an organic way in the experience of self-determination, although it manifests itself in various ways. It depends—so to speak—on the personal maturity of the act. The greater this maturity becomes, the more clearly the subject experiences self-determination. The greater the consciousness of the action and the consciousness of the values, the more clearly the person, the subject, experiences self-determination. The more clearly they experience self-determination, the clearer the experience is in their consciousness, and the clearer is their own efficiency and responsibility.

Self-determination as a property of the human act, which is made visible in the experience, draws the attention of the analyst of this act to the moment of will as the power of the person. The will is the power of the self-determination of a person, which is made visible on a closer examination of its acts, both the so-called simple act of the will, “I want,” as well as the developing of the act, i.e. the process of the will (to use the terminology of psychologists like Michotte or, in Poland, Fr. M. Dybowski).¹ Self-determination is expressed in both an elementary desire (“I want”) as well as in choice and resolution, which is the result of the knowledge of values, of motives, and often the struggle within a human being. Comparing the inquiries of the psychologists mentioned above with the concept of the developed and mature act of will found in St. Thomas, it is important to state that there is a rather large convergence of positions.

At the moment, however, it is not a comparative analysis of the act of the will. Noting that the will is the power of self-determination, we do not mean the same will in any methodical isolation, which would have to penetrate its own dynamics. We have here, of necessity, the whole person. The person’s self-determination is accomplished through acts of the will as the central authority of the human soul. However, self-determination is not identified with acts of the will in any form, because it is the property of the person. At this point, although our consideration remains at the phenomenological level of experience, it becomes particularly clear, especially in the light of St. Thomas’s distinction between substance and affliction, between the soul and its power and, in this case, in terms of the will. This analysis carried out (albeit briefly) here allows us to see that self-determination is a property of the person. The known definition says rationalis naturae idividua substantia, but this property is realized by the will, which is the power—the accident. Self-determination is the essence of human freedom. It is not limited in the human to the accidental dimension, but belongs to the material dimension of the person. It is the freedom of the person, not only the freedom of the will in the person, though undoubtedly the freedom of the person is manifested through his or her will.

3.

When we find that the self-determination of data in the overall human experience directs our analysis toward the act of the will, at the same time we must recognize that the analysis that understands this reality in terms of a phenomenological intentional act is not sufficient. The expression of the will as only “wanting,” which directs itself to the proper subject matter—the value or purpose—does not fully explain its peculiar dynamics. Such an analysis indicates only one aspect of the will and one aspect of the transcendent which is proper to it. Volition is directing an active entity, i.e. power, toward the subject, the value, which is willed as an end, and thus is also an object of desire. In such a reference to the act (which distinguishes the act of will from the various “wants” or “desires” of the subject), there is also the transcendence of the subject in the direction of value, or purpose; the entity actively “comes out,” as it were, beyond itself to that value, while still remaining as this particular “I” that decides to go out toward the value. This could be described as a level of transcendence. It seems that the aspects of intentionality or the transcendent “level” as an act of the will are exhausted in psychological analysis. In conveying the doctrine of St. Thomas on the act of the will, attention has often been drawn to this aspect in a somewhat unilateral way.

It seems, however, that with the help of the overall experience of a person and his or her act, we can more fully grasp the dynamism of the will, thus approaching the entirety of the concept inherited from St. Thomas. This tells us the reality of self-determination: namely, that self-determination gives expression to the fact that an act of the will is aimed not only to the subject but to a value as well. It contains in it something more: namely, the person is directing this act toward a certain value. It is, at the same time, not only about that at which it is aimed, but also about the person. The concept of self-determination includes more than the concept of agency: a person is not only the perpetrator of his or her actions, but these actions are also in some way “the creator himself.” The action is accompanied by becoming—moreover, it is organically associated with it. Therefore, self-determination, and not only the agency of the personal “I”, explains the reality and the personal character of moral values. It explains the reality that, by his or her acts, that person becomes “good” or “bad”—and since he or she has become “good” or “bad,” the act is, like the person, also “good” or “bad.” This is the same fundamental view as that of St. Thomas.²

If we were to remain in the analysis of the will as an intentional act, accepting only its horizontal transcendence, this realism and the personal character of moral values, the good and evil in the human, would remain completely inexplicable. We must therefore accept the personal structure of self-determination: it is self-determination that is expressed in different wants and desires, beyond the pure intentionality of these wants (it is all the same, whether it be a simple or complex process of the will). Intentionality indicates, in a way, the outer, toward an object that is of some value and thus draws its will toward itself. Self-determination, on the other hand, indicates inwardly to an individual who, by his desire for value, chooses to value himself as a value, becoming “good” or “evil.” The person is not only comprised of his or her actions, but also of him or herself in terms of the most important quality. In this way, self-determination corresponds to becoming a human being. (Because of this, he or she becomes more and more “someone” in the personal-ethical sense, since in the ontic sense he or she is “someone” from the very beginning. Let us add on this point that the pronoun “someone” as opposed to the pronoun “something” recognizes the human person’s distinctiveness.)

It seems that the experience of self-determination—with its substantially phenomenological nature—introduces us to a more complete understanding of this reality, which St. Thomas described as actus humamis or voluntarium. The personal structure of self-determination turns out to be a condition of full comprehension of what is contained in the phenomenon “I am acting.” If we assume—like Thomas—the full reality of moral values in the “person,” we must also accept that person as a subject in the act of self-determination becomes for him or herself “the subject.” Self-realization reveals the internal structure of the person; ontically being one, he or she is in its dynamism someone specifically complex; the person-entity appears in relation to the person-object. Self-determination as it were “objectifies” the entity acting in its own action. This objectification of the person is not “reification”; the person cannot become the thing for himself, although he is an intrinsic “partner” for himself and in that sense is the first and principal object of which he himself is. It is in this setting that subjectivity manifests itself in its deepest possibilities of these important qualifications, which testify that what the man or woman is (humanum) is also at the same time personal.

4.

If self-determination reveals that the person is the object of his or her own subject, then it emphasizes at the same time the particular complexity that is proper to man as a person. St. Thomas, followed by the whole tradition of Christian thought, emphasizes that persona est sui iuris et alteri incommunicabilis. Following in the footsteps of this human experience, whose crucial moment is self-perfection, we must recognize the immediate obviousness of these traditional expressions. Self-determination reveals as proper to the person the structures of self-possession and self-control. If man is himself, then he has to own himself and control himself. Indeed, these mutually explain each other because they also contain each other. Each of them reveals this specific complexity, which is proper to man as a person. (N.B. the Thomistic adagium also emphasizes that it is a person: persona est sui iuris et alteri incommunicabilis.) It is not about the metaphysical complexity of soul and body (= materia prima + forma substantialis)or the person as being, but the more complex “phenomenological”. Phenomenological experience reveals man as one who possesses himself and at the same time is possessed by himself. It also reveals that he is someone who is in control and at the same time under his own control. Both are revealed through self-determination and its implications, and at the same time it enriches its content. Through self-possession and self-control, the personal structure of self-determination comes into being in all its proper fulfillment.

Acting for himself—and this is done through an act of will—a man realizes and also bears witness to others that he possesses himself and prevails over himself. In this way, human acts provide us with specific insight into the structure of the person. This structure is drawn to us from the method side as a set of necessary conditions for the occurrence of what we see—thus experimentally—as data. Man, through self-determination, experiences that he is a person in the most direct way. It is obvious that, from this experience, such an understanding, which would constitute a complete theory of the person, must lead through a metaphysical analysis. This analysis will allow us to embed, among other things, the personal structure of self-determination in the ontological contingency, in the limitation of human existence. Nevertheless, experience is the indispensable beginning of this whole cognitive journey, and the experience of self-determination seems to be central to this beginning. In any case, if the full affirmation of the personal value of human acts calls for a theory of the person as its base, the building of that theory seems to be impossible without analytically penetrating the dynamic reality of action, and above all the important structure of self-determination, which from the beginning reveals a certain sense as a personal structure.

5.

In the Pastoral Constitution of Vatican II we read among other things that “This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for himself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.”³ The document of the last Council seems to use these words to epitomize the centuries-old traditions and the search of Christian anthropology of which God’s revelation has become the liberating light. The anthropology of St. Thomas Aquinas is deeply embedded in the mainstream of the tradition, and at the same time is open to all the achievements of human thought, which was worked out from different sides to complete the Thomistic concept of the person, confirming its realistic character at the same time. Vatican II’s words seem to emphasize above all the axiological aspect. They speak of a person who is of special value in and of himself, and who is also particularly endowed as a gift of himself. However, in this axiological aspect, it will be easier to reveal a deeper ontological aspect. The ontology of the person suggested by the quoted text again seems to be close to the experience we referred to here. In other words: if we want to fully accept the truth about the human person highlighted by Gaudium et spes, we must once again penetrate into the personal structure of self-determination.

As we have already stated above, in the experience of self-determination, the human person exposes himself as a specific structure of self-possession and self-control. Both are not, however, closed in on themselves. On the contrary, both self-possession and self-control signify a special disposition to “self-giving,” and that is the gift of “selflessness.” Only one who possesses himself can give himself away—and give it selflessly. And only one who is in control of him-self can also make of himself the gift—and this is again the gift of selflessness. The issue of selflessness deserves a separate analysis, which we do not take into consideration here. The understanding of the person in terms of gift, which re-emphasizes the teachings of Vatican II, seems to go even deeper into those dimensions that have been revealed in the present analysis. It seems to reveal the structure of personal self-determination even further.

Only those who can represent themselves—as we have previously tried to outline—may also become a gift to others. The conciliar statement that “man … cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” allows us to conclude that just when a person becomes a gift for others, he fully becomes himself. The “gift of the law” is written in the depths of the dynamic structure of the person—if it can be expressed in this way. The Vatican II text certainly draws on the inspiration of Revelation and in its light outlines the very image of the human-person. It may be that this is an image in which a person is defined simultaneously as being wanted by God “for himself” and at the same time as being directed “towards” others. However, this relational image of a person necessarily implies this immanent (and indirectly “substantial”) image that unfolds before us by analyzing the personal structure of self-determination.

On this last point, we have only confined ourselves to the problem. In concluding this statement on the personal structure of self-determination, it should be added that it was necessarily concise and omitted a whole series of elements deserving of analysis in a broader formulation (which is contained at the beginning of the study in Person and Act). We have, however, tried to contrast the current need of confronting the metaphysical conception of the person we see in St. Thomas and the traditions of Thomistic philosophy with the overall experience of man. In such a confrontation, the sources of cognition, from which the Angelic Doctor takes his idea of metaphysics, are opened wider. All the wealth contained in these sources is disclosed as well as the opportunity to learn from them. At the same time, it is perhaps better to expose both the possibilities of meeting contemporary thought as well as the indispensable aspects of it in the name of the truth about reality.

THE ETHICAL ANALYSIS OF LOVE

K. Wojtyła, “Etyczna analiza miłości,” in K. Wojtyła, Miłość i odpowiedzialność (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1986), pp. 109–123.

Affirmation of the value of the person

The commandment of love is, as it were, a personalistic norm. We are directed out from the essence of the being to recognize its special value. The world of beings is the world of objects; among them, we distinguish between persons and things. The person is different from structure and excellence. The structure of the person is the “interior,” in which we find the elements of the spiritual life, which forces us to recognize the spiritual nature of the human soul. Therefore, the person possesses the proper spiritual perfection. This perfection determines its value. There is no way to treat a person as equal to a thing (or just as an animal), since he or she has spiritual perfection, since it is a spirit (embodied) and not just a “body,” even if a very well animated one. Between the animal psyche and the spirituality of man there is a great distance, an impassable chasm.

The value of the person should be clearly distinguished from the different values that are in the person.¹ These are innate or acquired values, and they combine with the entire complex structure of the human being. These values, as we have seen, come to the fore in the love between a man and a woman; psychological analysis indicates this. The love of a man and a woman is based on impression, which goes hand in hand with emotion, and its subject is always a value. In the case of sexuality, the love of a woman and a man grows on the basis of sexual desire. Sexual value is associated with either the “whole person of the opposite sex,” or in a special measure returns to his or her “body” as a possible object of use. The value of a person is different from their sexual value, regardless of whether the latter refers to sensuality or to human feelings. The value of a person is related to the whole being of the person, not to gender, and gender is only a property of being.

Thus, each person of the other sex is primarily valued as a person and only later has some sexual value. Psychologically, the love of a woman and a man means that the experience is centered around the reaction to sexual values. In view of this experience, the person is primarily described as a “person of the opposite sex,” even if we do not exaggerate the reaction that “the body is a possible object of use.” At the same time, reason knows that this “person of the opposite sex” is a person. This knowledge is mental, conceptual—the person as such is not the content of the impression, just as the content of the impression itself is not a being as such. Therefore, “person” is not the content of the impression itself, but only the subject of conceptual knowledge. Also, the response to the value of a person cannot be as direct as the reaction to the sexuality of the “body” of that particular person or, more broadly, to the overall phenomenon of the “person of the opposite sex” (woman or man). In other words, what affects the emotional sphere in a human being is what is directly contained in the impression, and—in a different way—what the mind indirectly discovers in it. Nevertheless, the fact that the “person of the opposite sex” is a person, is someone, different than any other thing, is also in the consciousness, and, precisely, it is the need to integrate sexual love. It demands that all the sensory-emotional reactions to the “person of the opposite sex” are somehow pulled up to the truth that this man is a person.

So in any situation in which we experience the sexual value of a person, love demands integration, that is, the inclusion of this value in the value of a person, namely: subordination to the value of the person. And that is precisely the basic ethical expression of love: it is an affirmation of the person, and without it it is not love. If it is saturated with the proper reference to the value of the person—the reference we call affirmation here is love, is fully self—it is integral love. But when “love” is not permeated by this affirmation of the value of the person, then it is a kind of disinterested love, and it is not love, although the reactions or experiences may be of a “loving” (erotic) character.

This refers in particular to the love between a woman and a man. Love in the full sense of the word is a virtue, not just a feeling or even an excitement of the senses. This virtue is created in the will and possesses the resources of its spiritual potential, that is, the authentic engagement of the person-subject’s freedom flowing from the truth about the person-subject. Love as a virtue lives in the focus of the will on the value of the person, so it is the source of the affirmation of the person that pervades all reactions, experiences and their entire general conduct.

Love, which is a virtue, refers to emotional love and to that which is contained in sensual desire. It is not in the ethical order, anyway, to obliterate or disregard the sexual value to which the senses or feelings react. It is just that this value is strongly linked to the value of the person, since love refers not to the “body” itself, or even to the “person of the opposite sex,” but to the person. What is more, it is only by returning love to a person that it is love. It is not love by returning it to the “body” of the person, for here is clearly the desire to use them, which is essentially the opposite of love. Nor is there love for one another by only the emotional expression in the direction of the person of the opposite sex. It is known that this feeling—based so strongly on impressions and feelings of “femininity” or “masculinity”—may, at times, be exhausted in the emotional consciousness of both a man and a woman if it is not strongly associated with the affirmation of the person, namely, the man owes the experience of “femininity” and the woman owes the experience of “masculinity.”²

Sexual emotionality still moves among many such experiences, including impressions received from many people. Similarly, sensuality moves among many “bodies,” in the presence of which the sensation of “the object of possible use” is awakened. This is why love cannot be based on sensuality or even on the feelings themselves. Whichever way this is regarded, the person is missed. It prevents or at least does not lead to affirmation. This is despite the fact that emotional love seems to bring so much closer to the man and also brings the man closer to so much. Yet as she moves closer to the “man,” perhaps it is easy to miss the “person.” We will have to return to this in this chapter as well as in Chapter III. It has been observed that life raises the thought that affectionate love is ignited, especially in people of a certain kind of psyche, as if from the very phenomenon of “man” if it is saturated with the proper charge of “femininity” or “masculinity,” but by itself this love does not have such mature inner cohesion as is demanded by the full truth about the person being the proper object of love. The affirmation of the value of the person in which the full truth about the object of love is reflected must become one of those erotic experiences, the closest of which is sensuality or human affection.

The affirmation of a person’s worth goes in two directions, thus setting the most general grounds for sexual morality. On the one hand, it goes towards a certain mastery of these experiences, whose direct source is sensuality and human sentiment. This issue will be discussed in detail in Chapter III: “Person and Chastity.” The second direction in which the action of affirming the value of the person develops is a fundamental choice of the direction of one’s life vocation. The vocation of a person is usually connected with another person or persons in their life. It is clear that when a man chooses a woman as a companion in his life, then by that he identifies the person who will have the greatest share in his life and sets the direction of his life’s vocation. In this direction he is most closely uniting with the person, and it cannot therefore be described without an affirmation of her value. This will be further elaborated in Chapter IV, especially in the second part.

Affiliation of person to person

In the metaphysical analysis of love it was stated that its essence is realized in the deepest devotion of the loving person to the beloved person. This form of love, which is called spousal love, differs from other forms and expressions with a very specific gravity. We realize this when we understand the value of the person. The value of the person, as has been said, remains in the closest relation to the person’s being. By nature, by virtue of being, one is the master of one’s self (sui iuris), and cannot be surrendered to another, nor replaced by another in that which requires the participation of her own will and the involvement of her personal freedom (alteri incommunicabilis). Here, love extracts from a person their natural inviolability and inaccessibility. Love makes him want to give himself to the other—the one he loves. He wants to stop being his exclusive property and become the property of the other. This means a certain resignation from this sui iuris and from this altera incommunicabilis. Love goes through this resignation, but is guided by a deep conviction that this resignation leads not to diminishing and impoverishing the person’s existence, but on the contrary—to extending and enriching it. It is like the law of “ecstasy”—to move out of oneself, to be more fully in the other. In no other form of love does this law find fulfillment in such a distinct way as in marital love.

The love between a woman and a man also goes in this direction. We have already given attention to its particular intensity in the psychological sense. This intensity is explained not only by the biological strength of the sexual drive, but also by the nature of this form of love, which comes to the fore here. The outline of the sensory and emotional experiences that emerge so expressively in consciousness are only external and external tests of what is happening—and in any event, to be done—in the interior of persons. Giving oneself, giving one’s own person, can only be fully valued when it is a participation and work of the will. Because as a result of her free will, the person is a woman to herself (sui iuris), is somebody inseparable and non-transmissible (alteri incommunicabilis). The love of the bridegroom, the love of devotion, engages in a particularly profound way. It is known here that one must dispose of one’s own “I”, one must “give his soul,” to use the language of the Gospel.

Contrary to these viewpoints, in which the sexual problem is superficially seen as only the bodily submission of a woman to a man as the last step of “love” (erotica), it is necessary here to talk about mutual devotion and the mutual belonging of two people. Not a double-sided sexual use, in which his body x is in possession of y, in order that both can experience the maximum of sensual pleasure, but, precisely, a mutual devotion of selves and a mutual belonging of persons—this is the complete and full inclusion of the nature of spousal love, which in this case finds its fulfillment in marriage. In the opposite view, love is extinguished in advance when using another (in the first and second meaning of the word “to use”). Love cannot manifest itself in the use of the other, even if it is double-sided and simultaneous. Instead, it is expressed properly in the union of people. The fruit of the unification is their mutual affinity, which is expressed fully by (among other things) sexual intercourse; we call it intercourse or marital intercourse because—as we shall see—its place is only in marriage.

From an ethical standpoint, it is primarily a matter of not distorting the natural order of facts, nor of avoiding or omitting any of them. First, it must be achieved through the love of uniting people, woman and man, and only sexual intercourse can be the expression of such a mature union. It is worth mentioning here what has already been said about the objective and subjective profile of love. Love in the subjective profile is always a psychological situation, an experience driven by some sexual value and concentrated around it in the subject, or in two subjects of mutual love. Love in the objective profile is an inter-personal fact, it is reciprocity and friendship based on a community of good, so it is always a union of two people, and may become their mutual dependency. It is not possible to place the objective profile of two subjective profiles here nor their sums—these are two completely different areas of love.

The objective profile is decisive. It works itself out in two subjects, of course, through this whole richness of sensory-affective experiences, which belong to the profile of subjective love, but they are not identified with them. Sensory experiences have their own appetitive dynamics associated with sexual feeling and the vitality of the body. Emotional experiences also have their own rhythms: they tend to create this positive mood, which facilitates the sense of closeness of the beloved person and some spontaneous agreement with her. Love, however, tends to be united by mutual self-giving. This is a fact of deep, objective, even ontological significance, and therefore belongs to the objective profile of love. Sensory and emotional experiences are not identical to it, but form a set of conditions, among which is the fact of reality. At the same time, however, there is another problem, the opposite: how to maintain and how to assimilate that reciprocity among all these reactions and sensory-emotional experiences, which in themselves are characterized by great mobility and variability.

And here again, the issue arises that has been previously highlighted: sexuality, which in various forms is a crystalline center of sensory-emotional erotic experiences, must be firmly combined in the consciousness and the will with reference to the value of the person, the person who, in a sense, delivers the content of those experiences. Then one can only think of unifying people and their mutual belonging. Without this, “love” has only an erotic meaning, and it does not matter whether it is significant or personal: it leads to sexual union, but without the true union of persons. Such a situation is utilitarian, and the mutual relationship of persons is the realization of what is in the word “to use” (especially the second meaning of the word). Then x belongs to y as the object of use, but x giving to y the opportunity of using is trying alone to find some pleasure in it. This attitude on both sides is basically the opposite of love, and then we cannot speak of the unification of people. On the contrary, everything is prepared for the conflict of mutual interests, waiting for an explosion. Until this happens one can hide selfishness—egoism of the senses or selfish feelings—in the recesses of a fictitious structure, which with all seemingly good faith is called “love.” Over time, however, all the unreliability of this construction must be found. It is one of the greatest sufferings when love turns out to be not what it was supposed to be but something quite the opposite.

The idea is to avoid such disappointments. Spousal love, which brings with it the need for internal self-devotion to another human being—this need crystallized between man and woman in the flesh and being expressed in sexual intercourse—has its natural greatness. The measure of this magnitude is the value of the person who gives himself, and not just through sensual pleasure, to the other to whom he is joined. It is very easy to confuse the essence of things with what is, in fact, actually only a reflection of the essence. If one accepts this love of the depth of devotion, the depth of personal commitment, then what is left of it will be its total denial and the opposite. After all, the extension of this line of thinking is ultimately what we call prostitution. Spousal love consists, on the one hand, of the dedication of the person and, on the other, of the reception of this devotion. There is a “mystery” of reciprocity: acceptance must at the same time be devotion and dedication as well as acceptance. Love is by its nature one’s own: one who is able to receive can also give. Of course, this is a skill that is symptomatic of love, because there is also the ability to receive and the ability to give symptomatic selfishness. The first, which is symptomatic for love, is the ability to give and receive. It is a man whose attitude toward the woman is permeated by a thorough affirmation of the value of this woman. This woman also has that ability, whose attitude toward the man is permeated by the affirmation of the man’s worth. Such a basis creates the most interior climate of devotion—the personal atmosphere of all spousal love. This reliable ability to affirm the value of a person is needed by both, and it is necessary for both for the self-giving of the person and for the acceptance of the same. Only this woman, who is fully convinced of the value of her person and of the value of the person of the man on whom she relies, is capable of true self-giving. And only the man who is capable of accepting the devotion of a woman in fullness, who has a thorough knowledge of the magnitude of this gift, one that he cannot hold without an affirmation of the value of the person, is capable of the same. The awareness of the value of the gift raises the need for gratitude and reciprocity, which should be equal to the magnitude of the gift. It is also important to see how spousal love, the love of mutual devotion, must include the inner structure of friendship.

In any case, only when we move to the plane of the person in the orbit of its intrinsic value does it become understandable and clear that the whole objective of spousal love is an act of the mutual surrender and affiliation of two people—a woman and a man. However, as long as we are considering this subject only “from the position” of sexuality and its associated play of feelings and passions, we cannot enter into the proper orbit of the issue. It is then impossible to grasp the principles of sexual morality which remain in the strictest relation to the commandment of love, and, as stated in the “personal norm,” both itself and all its consequences become transparent only when we move onto the plane of the person in the orbit of its intrinsic value.

Choice and responsibility

Maybe nowhere in the entire book as in this place does the title speak of “love and responsibility.” There is a responsibility in love—it is the responsibility of the person who enters into the closest community of being and acting, which is done in a certain way by virtue of her devotion. And therefore there is also a responsibility for one’s own love. Is she so mature that within her limits is the great trust of another person, born of her love, the hope that by giving herself she will not lose her “soul,” but, on the contrary, will find a greater fullness of her existence—and will not be let down? The responsibility for love is reduced, as is apparent, to the responsibility for the person from whom it flows and to whom it returns. That is why it is an enormous responsibility. But the enormity of it is understood as a profound sense of values of the person. The person who has only the capacity to react to the sexual values of the person in him but does not see the value of the person in himself will continue to mix love with eroticism, he will entangle himself and the other, wasting everything for himself, and for him the proper sense of love is for its “taste.” This “taste” of love is associated with a sense of responsibility for the person. In this sense there is a concern for the greatest good for her—the quintessence of all altruism, and at the same time the infallible sign of some extension of her own “self,” her own existence, the “other self,” and the second existence, which is as close to mine as my own.

The sense of responsibility for the other person is sometimes full of concern, but it is never in itself unpleasant or painful. For it is not the restriction or the impoverishment of man, but an enrichment and enlargement. Therefore, love detached from the sense of responsibility for a person is a contradiction, it is always and usually selfish. The greater the sense of responsibility for the person, the truer the love.

This truth sheds a bright light on the issue of the choice of the person. We are still counting on the fact that the love of a woman and a man is a natural way of seeking one another’s mutual giving and belonging. On the road to what constitutes the ultimate form of love, what must lie on both sides, that is, with both the man and the woman, is the choice of the person—of the one to whom spousal love and devotion will turn. The choice has the same specific gravity as that to which it leads. After all, the person selected—and with it the spousal form of love—mutual devotion. Another person is being chosen, but in a way it is another “I”, as if oneself was chosen in the other and the other in oneself. That is why both parties must have a choice not only to be truly personal, but also to have a genuine personal identity. Only the individuals (x and y) can belong to each other so that they are objectively good to be with each other. For man is always and above all else himself (“a person”) so that he can not only be with another, but also live with her and for her; he must somehow still find himself in him and in himself. Love is impossible for entities that are mutually impenetrable, only spirituality and the associated “interiority” create the conditions of mutual penetration so that they can live in each other and also live mutually together.

This opens up a very interesting and very rich side issue, which might be called the problem of “the psychology of choice.” What are the moments, the psycho-physiological factors that cause two people to respond to each other and decide that they are good for each other and belong to each other? Are there any rules and general principles outlined in the psycho-physiological structure of man? What somatic and constitutional moments do they bring here, what temperament and disposition? These are fascinating questions, but it seems that, despite various attempts to provide answers on some broader scope, it ultimately remains a mystery of human individuality. There are no rigid rules, and philosophy and ethics owe their authority to the teacher of life, wisdom, that is trying to clarify these problems inasmuch as can be explained. Specific disciplines, such as physiology, sexology, and medicine, will do well when they share the same principle while at the same time assisting philosophy and ethics in fulfilling their practical tasks.

Under the assumption of healthy empiricism, it is important to recognize that the choice of the other sex to be the recipient of spousal love and, at the same time, the one that co-creates by virtue of reciprocity must be based on sexual values. After all, this love is supposed to have a sexual meaning, to be the basis of all co-existence of people of different sexes. Without experiencing both sexual values, it cannot even be thought of in that way. Sexuality, as is known, involves not only the impression of the “body as a possible object of use,” but also the overall impression that the “person of the opposite sex” provides a woman by her “femininity,” and a man by his “masculinity.” This second impression is more important, and it also appears earlier chronologically; normally, with naturally healthy young people, the first experience with sexual values refers to a “person of the opposite sex,” and not primarily to “the body as a possible object of use.” If the latter comes first, we are already dealing with a product of corruption—this lack of natural order in response to sexual values will make love, and especially the process of choosing a person, difficult.

The choice of a person is a process in which sexual values cannot play the role of a sole motive, or even—in the final analysis of this act of will—a prime motive. This would be contrary to the very concept of “personal choice.” If the sole motive or even the primary choice was sexual value alone, then it would not be the choice of the person, but only the choice of the opposite sex associated with a “person” or even just a “body, which is the subject of possible use.” It is clear that if we are to talk about the choice of a person, the primary motive must be the value of the person. The primary one, however, does not mean the only one. Such a positioning would be devoid of the qualities of a healthy empiricism, and it would weigh upon the stigma of that aphorism, which is characterized by Kant’s ethics with its formalist personalism. The point is to really choose a person rather than just the values that are related to the person without considering the same as the basic value. This would be that y who would choose x only because of the sexual values that x possesses. It is immediately clear that a person who chooses in this way has utilitarian tendencies, and thus is less than a loving person. The sexual values that y finds in x (or her in him) are certainly motivating factors in the choice, but the person who chooses must be fully aware that he or she is choosing a person. However, the sexual values of the chosen subject may disappear, change, etc., but the fundamental value—the value of the person—will remain. The choice is the true choice for the person when it counts as the most important and decisive factor. So when we observe the complete process of the choosing of a woman by a man or a man by a woman, then we must conclude that it is shaped by the sexual values which are somehow sensed and lived. However, ultimately, each of them does not so much choose a person because of these values, but how much these values are due to the person.

And only when one finally chooses is the act of choice internally mature and finished. Only then is the proper integration of the object, the object of the choice of the person, captured in all its truth. The truth about the person as the object of choice crystallizes precisely in that the very value of that person is for the person choosing that value, which is subordinated to all others. Sexual values that affect the senses and feelings are captured in the right way. If they were the only or primary motive for the choice of a person, that choice would be in itself incomplete and untrue, he would have the full truth about his subject, about the person. Such a choice would have to be the starting point for a disintegrated love, which is also incomplete and untrue.

True love, internal love, is the one in which a person chooses another for herself, that is, in which a man chooses a woman, and a woman a man, not only as a “partner” of sexual life, but as a person to give life. Vibrating in sensual and affective experiences, sexual values accompany this decision and contribute to its psychological clarity but not to its depth. The “core” of a person’s choice must be personal, not just sexual. Life will check the value of the choice and the value and the true magnitude of love.

It is most effective when the sensory-affective experience weakens and when the sexual values themselves cease to function. Only then will the value of the person and the inner truth of love come forth. If this love were true devotion and belonging, then it would not only stand, it would also strengthen and consolidate. But if it was just a synchronization of sensuality and emotion, then it would lose all reason of being; the people involved in it would suddenly be in a vacuum. One has to take seriously the fact that every human love must go through a trial, and that only then will it prove its true value.

When the choice of a person is internally mature, and when the love with it acquires the necessary integration into one’s inner life, then it takes on a new character also in psychological and, above all, affective terms. For not only sensuality but also the emotion itself shows a kind of mobility and variability—and this is always triggered by some subconscious anxiety. Inwardly mature love is released from this anxiety by the choice of a person. The feeling becomes calm and certain, because it ceases to circulate around itself and follow it, and follows its object, follows a person. The purely subjective truth of sentiment has given way to the objective truth of the person who is the subject of choice and love. This makes the feeling itself as if it were new. It becomes simple and sober. Despite how purely emotional love is characterized by this idealization (as was mentioned in the psychological analysis), the feeling itself creates different values and equips the person to whom it returns. It has matured in the inner act of choosing the love of the person, focused on the value of the person itself, makes us love the affectionate person as she really is not our image of her, but the real person. We love the person with all their advantages and disadvantages, in a way, regardless of the advantages and despite the disadvantages. The magnitude of such love manifests itself most when the person stumbles in his weakness or even when his sins come to light. A truly loving man not only refuses not to love his love, but loves her a little more—he loves her anyway, aware of her shortcomings and faults, even though he does not approve of them at all. For a person never loses his or her essential value. The feeling that follows the value of a person is faithful.

The involvement of freedom

Only the truth about the person enables the actual involvement of freedom in relation to that person. Love consists of the commitment of freedom, it is self-giving, and self-giving is what it means: to limit your freedom because of the other. Limiting one’s own freedom would be something negative and unpleasant—love makes it something positive, joyful and creative. Freedom is for love. By not using freedom, freedom becomes something negative; it gives man a sense of emptiness and non-fulfillment. Love engages in freedom and fills it with the will of nature, grabs it and fills it with good. Will tends towards good, and freedom is the property of the will, and therefore freedom is for love, because through it man participates in the most human good. This is an important title for her priority in the moral order, in the hierarchy of virtues, and in the hierarchy of the healthy longings and desires of man. The human desires love more than freedom—freedom is the means, and love the end. But the human desires real love, because only based on truth is the authentic commitment to freedom possible. The will is free, and at the same time “must” seek the good that will answer her nature; it is free to seek and to choose, but it is not free from the need to seek and choose.

However, the will cannot stand imposing itself upon the object as the good. It wants to choose and affirm itself, because the choice is always an affirmation of the value of the object it chooses. So the man who chooses the woman affirms her value—it is to affirm the value of the person, not only her “sexual” value. The sexual value imposes itself, however the value of the person is waiting for affirmation and for choice. And therefore some fight usually takes place between the drive and freedom in the will of the man who has not yet been overcome by passions, but still keeps his internal newness. The drive tries to impose its object and its purpose, trying to create an inner fact accomplished in man. The word “drive” is used here not in its proper and full sense, as it was interpreted in the preceding chapter, but only in part, about the only manifestations of sexual desire through which sexual value takes possession of the sensuality and sentiment of man, and thus “seizes” the will. When the will succumbs to the senses, it starts to desire a person. The feeling of desire takes on a physical and consumptive character and at the same time begins to desire a “person of the opposite sex.” However, as long as the will succumbs only to what the senses experience and to that which the feelings cling, the will is not able to hear what its own creative participation in love is.

The will only loves when a man consciously engages his freedom in relation to another person as a person whose value is fully recognized and affirmed. Such involvement is not primarily a desire for this man. The will is a creative power, capable of giving of itself, and not only for the sake of assimilating the already existing good. The love of the will is expressed above all in the desire for the good of the loved one. The desire of the person for himself does not yet reveal the creative potential of the will, nor does it constitute love in the positive sense of the word. The nature of the will wants the good, and it is a good without boundaries or happiness. In the pursuit of it, he seeks a person and desires it for himself as a particular good that can bring happiness. Yes, x desires y and y desires x—and on this depends... the love of desire. The senses and feelings help in this love. But the love which helps the senses and the feelings is like the closest opportunity to ensure that the will, with its natural desire to pursue the good without boundaries or happiness, has begun to desire that good not only for one’s own subject but also for another, for that person, who is—based on the senses and feelings—the object of desire. And here it is precisely this tension between the dynamics of the drive and the dynamics of the will. The drive makes the will desire and want a person because of their sexual value, but does not stop there. It is free, that is, able to desire everything in relation to the good of the absolute, good without borders—happiness. And that capacity, this natural, noble potential, engages with that person. She desires good for herself, good without borders, happiness—and in this way it is as if she balances or internally occupies what the person of “other sex” wants from her.³ Of course, we have in mind here only a partial meaning of the word “drive.” The desire not only fights with impulses, but at the same time takes up, in the context of spousal love, what constitutes its natural purpose. The drive is directed towards the existence of humanity, which in singularity always means the existence of a new person, a child, as the fruit of the love of a man and a woman in marriage. The will turns to this goal, and through a conscious realization of it, attempts to extend this creative tendency, which is its right.

In this way, true love, using the natural dynamics of the will, strives to bring the trait of total selflessness into the relation of a man and a woman, to free that love from the attitudes to use (in the first and second meanings of the word “use”). And that is what is called the struggle between love and drive. Drive wants above all to take, to use the other person, but love wants to give, to create good, to make it happy. You can see again how much the love of the bridegroom should be permeated by what is the essence of friendship. In the desire for good “without boundaries” for the other “I” is contained, as if in the rush of the whole creative momentum of true love, the rush to give good things to those who love to make them happy.⁴

This is a “divine” figure of love. It exists when y wants the good for x “without boundaries,” as then she really wants God for him. He is the objective object of good, and He alone can fulfill such a person. The love of man, by referring to happiness, that is, to the fullness of good, is, as it were, closest to God. The other thing is that this “fullness of good” and also “happiness” is often not understood in this way. “I want to make you happy,” that is, I want to make you happy, but I do not go into what that involves. Only people of profound faith say quite clearly: this is God. Others do not anticipate this thought as if they were leaving this “position” to fulfill the beloved person: that is what you yourself want, in which you see yourself full of good. The whole energy of love, on the other hand, focuses primarily on the fact that “I” really want that for you.⁵

The great moral force of true love lies in this desire for happiness, or true good, for another person. Thanks to this, love is able to revive man, giving him a sense of inner richness, inner fertility and creativity: I am able to want good for another person, so I am able to want the good. True love compels me to believe in my own spiritual strength. Even when I am “bad,” true love—if it is aroused in me—tells me to seek the true good for the person to whom it returns. In this way, the affirmation of the value of the other person finds a deep resonance in the affirmation of my own value; this is because of the same sexual value that is aroused in a given subject, the desire for happiness for the other “I” is needed. When love reaches its full dimensions, it brings not only the honest “climate” of the person, but also some sense of the “absolute,” the encounter with what is absolute and final. Love is indeed the highest moral value. It is also about the ability to transfer dimensions of love into the ordinary affairs of everyday life. And here arises the problem with fostering love.

DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS OF THE COMMUNITY

K. Wojtyła, “Osoba: podmiot i wspólnota,” in K. Wojtyła. Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne (series: Człowiek i moralność, vol. 4), ed. T. Styczeń, W. Chudy, J.W. Gałkowski, A. Rodziński and A. Szostek (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Naukowe KUL, 2000), pp. 391–408.

Status quaestionis

The merging of subject and community in the title of the present article will not determine in what way both of these subjects will be connected in our analysis. The previous course of thought, as it was originally announced, directs this analysis to the relationship between the subjectivity of the human-person and the structure of the human community. This relationship is going to be re-examined here, which I understand in relation to the previous examination in Person and Act. A reservation must be made at the same time, emphasizing that the development in this study is in no way exhaustive, nor does it intend to lead to an extensive study of the problem. However, it may be possible to add some new ideas to what has already been said.

First and foremost, it must be stated that the study of Person and Act does not contain any theory of the community, it deals only with the consideration of the elementary condition in which the existence and functioning of a human being “together” with others serve to fulfill one’s self, or at least do not disturb him. It is impossible to deny the relevant facts. And those (negative) facts, known to us from the history of people and human societies, must be kept in mind when one considers the problem of a personal subject in the community. For this is properly limited to the last chapter of Person and Act. The theory of the community is not sufficiently elaborated in it, although certain elements of this theory are implicit. One such element is the notion of participation, which in the last chapter of Person and Act is understood in two ways. First, as a person’s property expressed in the ability to personalize (personalistic) the dimension of one’s own existence and action when one is living and working together with other people. In turn, participation is understood in Person and Act as a positive relationship with the humanity of other people, but “humanity” is not understood as an abstract human idea, but—according to the whole view in that study—as a personal “I” which is unique and unrepeatable. “Humanity” is not an abstract or a generality, but has in it each person as a specific gravity of the personality (as can be seen, the “weight of the species” does not come in this case from the very concept of “species”). To participate in the humanity of another man means to remain in a living relationship with the fact that he is that man, not just in relation to what he (in abstracto) is as a man. On the whole, moreover, it is based on the specificity of the evangelical concept of “neighbor.”

The first meaning of participation thus does not point to this positive relationship of the humanity of the other person but to the property of the person by which a man or woman, by being and acting together with others, is capable of acting in that same activity and living in self-fulfillment, personally subject to the community. It is a metaphysical, primordial (and therefore a factual) as well as a methodological one. This means that not only are people de facto living and working together as a multiplicity of personal entities but also that there is nothing important about this coexistence and co-operation in a personalistic sense—that is, as a community; we cannot say this if we do not come from the person as a personal subject.¹

To this end, it comes down to—in my opinion—the whole problem of alienation. It has its meaning not because of the person as a member of the "human” species but because of the person as a personal entity. The person—the individual of the species—is and does not cease to be human regardless of any system of inter-human or social relations, while the person as a personal entity may, in this relationship, alienate, in other words, move “from-man.” That is why participation is understood above all in Person and Act as a property by which the person, being and acting in partnership with others—in different systems of interpersonal or social relations—is capable of being him or herself and fulfilling him or herself. Participation is somewhat the antithesis of alienation. If in Person and Act this is referred to as a specific characteristic of a human person, it means that man strives to participate but defends himself from alienation, and the basis of both is not his own species but personal subjectivity.

Therefore, in considering the community, one cannot attach a primary significance to the fact that the person exists and works “together” with others as a fact of the “material.” As such, he does not say anything about the community, he speaks only of the multiplicity of entities, the actors acting as human beings. The community is not alone the “material” of the fact of living and acting together with many people, or, as in the analysis of Person and Act, together with others. By the community, we understand not only this multiplicity of subjects but always the specific unity of this multiplicity. This unity is accidental in relation to any and all persons. It arises as a relation or sum of relations existing between people. These relationships can be seen as an objective reality that qualifies all and at the same time everyone in a determined number of people. Then we can talk about society (or community; in another language, we talk about social groups, etc.). Although individual people—personal entities—are members of this society in themselves and each separate entity is substantial (supposita) and society itself is merely a set of relations, and thus a perilous being, this perplexed being is then put forth (i.e. in the conception of society) as a foreground and a basis for the judgment of the people and of the persons belonging to it. We are talking about a person from the point of view of social affiliation, e.g. “Pole,” “Catholic,” “city dweller,” or “worker.”

We can also consider the same relationship or the same set of relationships, through which a plurality of people—personal entities—constitute social unity, not so much as an objective reality that qualifies everyone in this multiplicity, but rather from the consciousness and experience of all its members and at the same time in a certain way. Only then do we enter into the reality of the community and touch its proper meaning. This is clear from both the factual (and therefore metaphysical) as well as the methodological point of view of the close communication, relevance and adequacy between the community and human subject, as was highlighted for the latter in the first part of our discussion. By examining only the multiplicity of human supposita and the unity of their corresponding interpersonal or social relations, we get a slightly different picture from that which is created when taking personal subjectivity² into account and therefore the awareness and survival of a relationship between people in a particular social or human multiplicity. It seems that only the second image corresponds to the concept of community.

The fact is that we very often use the terms “community” and “society” interchangeably. This has been covered in the light of all that was said above. At the same time, however, what has been said so far also points to a certain distinction. A community is not simply a society, nor is a society simply a community. Even if one and the other are in reality essentially the same elements, we still see other aspects in them and this creates a significant difference. To some extent it can be said that a society (community, social group, etc.) is another community because of its members. As a result, the community seems to be more important, at least from the perspective of the personal subjectivity of all the members of a given society or social group. In this way, it is also clear that social relations in a given (and thus one and the same) society may become a source of alienation as the community disappears, that is, consciously and experientially through the specific subjects’ relationships, ties and social unity.

There is both a real and ideal concept of community, as can be deduced from what has been said so far. This includes both the reality and the ideal or principle. The significance of this is ontological, and at the same time axiological and therefore normative. Not all the meanings of the community are exposed here in their entirety, they can only be indicated. The previous analysis of personal subjectivity can lead us to some extent to understand these different meanings of the community and can help us in their explication. The community is an important reality for human co-existence and co-operation, and can be the basic norm for it. Therefore it is clear that there is a special value of the community, which probably cannot be simply identified with the so-called common good. This value detects and tracks the coexistence and interaction of people from the kind of personal subjectivity of each of them. The common good seems to be the objectification of the axiological meaning of every society, community, environment, social group, etc. If we talk about the so-called social nature of man, the discovery of the community is important for the direct argument of this thesis.

It is precisely in this context that we face the problem of the relationship between the community, the value of the community, and the autoteleology of man. There seems to be no doubt that man fulfills himself in communion with others. The community also fulfills itself through community. But does this mean that one can in some way reduce the self-fulfillment of a person to the community, or autoteleology to the teleology of the community or several communities? We will continue to try to consider this matter, sketching two—also seemingly irreducible to each other—profiles or dimensions of the human community. One is the dimension of the inter-human or inter-personal relationship, whose symbol can be the system “I” – “you”. The second dimension of the reference, which can be symbolized by the “we”, seems to be not interpersonal but social. In both of these systems, the subjective personality of man, previously analyzed, must be an element not only of further analysis, but also of gradual, retrospective examination.

“I” – “you”: the inter-personal dimension of the community

One could, in this as well as in the next part of our analysis, talk about the profile of the community, but it seems that it is better to speak about its dimension. The community in each of the systems we intend to analyze is not only a different fact but also—with its actual structure (what we refer to as the “profile”)—has a different axiological and normative meaning, and so another measure. In our analysis, we will try to discover and to some extent also define these measures of the systems “I” – “you” and in turn “we”. These systems arise on the basis of the facts of the coexistence and cooperation of people. They belong to both human experiences, as well as to the primary (pre-scientific, and even to some extent pre-reflective) understanding of these experiences. The emergence of man, the beginning of his existence and his relatively long period of development are realized in the systems “I”, “you” and “we”, although the human being, in his or her profile, does not reflect their meaning or structure. This can shed much light on the study of developmental psychology. There is no doubt that the systems “I” – “you” and “we” as lived facts, and thus data of human experience, are in each of us much older than any attempt—especially any methodological attempts—toward the reflective objectivization of these systems.

Appreciating the fact, or the rich and very influential set of facts, to the full extent, we would like to take this analysis as a basis for the later situation, namely that which allows us to speak of a sufficient stage of development of the personal subjectivity of man.

It is for us, both in the present and in the future analysis, to consider not only the suppositum humanum, but also the human “I”. It seems that the only position of a sufficiently shaped personal subjectivity of man can undergo a full analysis of the “I” – “you” system and, in turn, the “we” system in terms of the communal reality embodied in these systems. It also seems that the profile or dimension of the communities included in each of these systems when the subject is sufficiently analyzed at the stage of shaped personal subjectivity should act retrospectively, i.e. explain these systems on prior stages, and not vice versa. We take this forward to the “I” – “you”, in which we perceive (to a certain extent, unlike the “we”) primarily the interpersonal, i.e. the inter-personal, dimension of the community.

It sometimes is stated that “I” is constituted through “you”,³ and it is this terrific mental shortcut of course that demands development and extension. In such an explication, we cannot omit the essential fact that “you” is always for somebody the same as “I”, that is, some second “I”. From the same starting point, a multiplicity of personal entities exist in the relationship “I” – “you”; it is the multiplicity of the minimum (one + one), however the unity of the community must be based on the assertion of that multiplicity. “You” is the other, other than my “I”. Thinking and saying “you” expresses a relationship that goes somewhat beyond me, but at the same time also comes back to me. “You” is not only an expression of separation, but also an expression of reference, because in this definition there is always a clear distinction between one and the other. This separation does not necessarily have to be formal, it can be virtual; it does not have to be the “text” of the relationship itself, it may belong to its “subtext.” Nevertheless, by thinking and saying “you”, I always have some awareness that this particular person, as defined by me, is one of many that I can define in this way, and I also define (and experience) various other people—in other moments or situations—in the same way, and could thus determine each of them. Potentially, therefore, the relationship: “I” – “you” is directed from me to all people, but at the moment it always connects me to another. If it binds me at the moment, then it is not a relation to “you”, but to the plural “you”, although it may very easily spread to a number of “you” relationships.

At the same time, it reveals a particular maneuverability of this relationship. The relation to the “you” is in its structure always the substantial relationship to another, but only in this system of “I”, and it therefore somehow has the ability to return to this “I” from which it emerged. It is not about the function of counter-relations, because you, as “I”, can in the same way refer to me (to my “I”) as “you”; then the “I” am for him “you”. It is the same relationship that runs from my “I” to “you” because it has its complementary function, which is to return to that “I” from which it left. Certainly everything has that which at the moment we are writing about, one’s complete meaning only in the aspects of awareness and experience, in it alone. However, that which is formed in the “I”, and in the “you” as a second “I”, does not have the plenitude typical of oneself in this sense of a relation or metaphysical category in its entirety. We are still talking about the fact of experiencing relationship references, which implies “I” and “you” as distinct personal subjectivities and not just relations as falling into the separate supposita, which does not mean that this basic reality is questioned. In any case, the “I” and “you” are indispensable as fully constituted separate personal entities with all that constitutes the personal subjectivity of each. If the direction of the relation of “I” to “you” is directed back to the “I”, from whom she is in the maneuverability of the relationship (not necessarily still in reciprocity, which is also in the counter-relation between “you” – “I”), it is included in a specific moment of the constitution of the human “I” through the relationship to “you”. It seems that this moment is not yet a community, but rather it is more important for the fuller experience of oneself, of their “I”, in a way to verify it “in the light of another ‘I’”. The process of the imitation of personal patterns may also develop on the basis of this relationship, a process that is very important for education and self-education,⁴ and ultimately for the fulfillment of oneself, whose original dynamism is rooted in every individual subjectivity, as we have previously stated. However, without reaching too far, we have assumed that the “you” helps me in the normal order of things to a fuller statement of my own “I”, and even to its confirmation, to self-affirmation. In its basic form, the relationship: “I” – “you” does not lead me out of my own subjectivity; indeed, in a certain way, it is embedded more firmly in it.⁵

Examined in this way, the relation of “I” to “you” already constitutes a genuine experience of the inter-personal, although the full experience takes place only when the relationship: “I” – “you” is reciprocal, i.e. when at the same time “you” becomes “I” as defined by the other, and or when another person makes me your “you”, or when two people become “I” and “you” for each other and in this way experience their references. It seems that only then can we trace the fullness of this community, which is the proper inter-personal system: “I” – “you”. Nevertheless—it is necessary to repeat this once more—even without such reciprocity, the relation: “I” – “you” is the actual experience of the inter-personal system, and it is also on this basis that we can analyze that participation, which in Person and Act is defined as participation in the humanity itself of another person. It seems that the mutuality of the relationship: “I” – “you” is not necessary for this participation. It allows us only to say that it is precisely this, and not something else, in the case of reciprocal relations: “I” – “you”, that has an essential constitutivum community of interpersonal character.

In considering this analysis we do not take particular embodiments and variations of the inter-personal references: “I” – “you”, or, at the same time, individual forms and varieties of the community that shape them (or in the ways in which these references are formed; the community, as it is said, is the essential element of such mutual references). It is known that some forms of inter-personal references “I” – “you”, first of all friendship and love, have come up with repeated and multiple expositions and elaborations, and they continue to be the subjects of privileged human reflections. In this study, despite the analysis and characterization of the same references “I” – “you”, we want to emphasize what is relevant to the community that they contain from the point of view of the subjects themselves, and more specifically from the point of view of reciprocity, such as a reference to the concrete “I” and “you” in their personal subjectivity. The point is, rather, to show the moment of a certain regularity in an analogous way to all those references in which two persons are associated as “I” and “you”, irrespective of the specific characteristics of the same references. There is an interpersonal dimension of the community that is relevant to all “I” – “you” systems irrespective of their specific configurations. In this analysis, the “I” – “you” of spouses, the “I” – “you” of the mother and the child, as well as the “I” – “you” of the two unidentified persons who find themselves unexpectedly in this system will be examined.

By omitting all the specific characteristics of the references themselves (i.e. relationships), one must think about one thing and emphasize one thing. Here the person, both “I” and “you”, is not only a living but also an acting subject and in this action “you” becomes at every step a subject for “I”, and this subjectivity and the whole relationship returns to “I” on the basis of a specific interaction: “I” is becoming an object in a special way for himself in action like an object directed toward “you”. It is, moreover, a way to process the organically peculiar constitution of the “I” with the “you”, which has already been mentioned. If “I”, as stated in the first part, is constituted by your actions, and in the same way “you” is constituted as the second “I”, then the “I” – “you” relation is constituted in a similar way and this system has relational effects of this system in both its entities: both “I” and “you”. The subject “I” is experiencing a relationship with “you” in the action, the subject of which is “you”, and of course vice versa. By this object-oriented action towards the “you”, the subject “I” not only experiences itself in relation to “you”, but also experiences its own subjectivity in a new way. The objectivity of action (actions and interactions) is a source of the confirmation of the subjectivity of the acting, unless the object itself is an entity and represents the proper personality subjectivity.

Now, limited to the system “I” – “you” in its elementary kind of form, without any detailed specification of the mutual relationship of the two people, and taking into account that in this system the “I” is the subject of actions objectively aimed at “you” and vice versa, we can determine the essential dimension of inter-personal community. This dimension is both a fact and a postulate, and has a metaphysical and normative (ethical) meaning, as has already been said about the notion of community. This dimension is reduced to behavior, meaning the actual experience of “the other as self.” We take this formulation from the Gospel, and all analysis goes back to the meaning of “neighbor” which is what the last chapters of Person and Act were about.

In order to fully clarify this dimension of the communion of inter-personal relation, the “I” – “you”, we must conclude that these mutual relations make the person disclose his or her personal subjectivity, all that this subjectivity is. “You” is faced with “I” as the true and complete “other ‘I’”, which—like my own “I”—is not only self-awareness but, above all, self-possession and self-mastery. The structure of the subjective “you” as “the other I” represents the transcendence of one’s own self, and one’s own desire for self-fulfillment. The whole structure of personal subjectivity, the “I” and the “you” as “the other,” through the proper community of relations, “I” – “you”, is revealed to each other, because—through this reciprocal relationship “I” – “you” I am simultaneously “you” for that “second self,” which is my “you”. In this way, the relation “I” – “you” as a mutual reference of two entities (supposita) not only gains importance but actually becomes an authentic subjective community.

When we say that in such a community there is a mutual disclosure of the person in his or her personal subjectivity, we point to the factual significance of the community, which is the proper inter-personal relationship of “I” – “you”. One cannot forget that the community also has a normative meaning. From this point of view it should be said that through this dimension of the community, which is the proper inter-personal relationship, “I” – “you”, the mutual manifestation of the person should be made, the disclosure of one person to another, in his or her personal subjectivity, in everything that constitutes him or her. Through the relationship “I” – “you” person for person, they disclose in their depths the structure of self-possession and self-mastery, and especially the tendency to self-fulfillment, which culminates in acts of conscience and testifies to the proper person as a person of transcendence. In such a truth of his personal reality person for person, he or she must not only manifest him or herself in the interpersonal relations of “I” – “you” but should be accepted and affirmed in this truth. Such acceptance and affirmation is the expression of the moral (ethical) meaning of the inter-personal community.

In this sense, both shape and, in other respects, check the interpersonal community in its individual realizations in the particular variations of the mutual references of the human “I” and “you”, such as friendship or love. The deeper, more integrated, and more intense the reciprocal relationship linking the “I” and “you” is, the more it takes the form of trust, dedication, or specific membership (i.e. it is possible only in person to person relations), and the greater the need for mutual acceptance and affirmation of “I” for “you” in his or her personal subjectivity. Thus, also, the greater the need for the whole structure of self-ownership with all the regularity of personal transcendence, which expresses itself in acts of conscience. In this way, on the basis of the relationship “I” – “you”, by the nature of inter-personal community, there is a growing mutual responsibility of the person as a person,⁶ and this responsibility is the reflex of conscience and transcendence that both the “I” and the “you” is on the way to self-fulfillment, and at the same time, it is the proper, i.e. the authentic, personal dimension of the community.

Through the community we understand what is connected. In the relationship “I” – “you”, authentic inter-personal community (in whatever form or variety) is formed if “I” and “you” are in mutual affirmation of the transcendent value of the person (it can also be defined as dignity) and then it confirms their actions. It seems that only this type of system is worthy of the name personarum communion.⁷

“We”: the social dimension of the community

It is imperative to distinguish the social dimension of the community from the interpersonal dimension. This is dictated by the different profiles of this community, which—in a symbolic way, and at the same time very precisely—express the same pronouns “I” – “you” and “we”. “I” and “you” only indirectly indicate a plurality of persons related to the relationship (one + one), and directly point to the same person, and “we” points directly to the multiplicity and, indirectly, to persons belonging to this multiplicity. “We” primarily means a collection; of course, this collection consists of people, that is, persons. This collection, which we can call a society, a community, a group, etc., does not have the same substantial being in itself, but—as has already been mentioned above—what follows from the indisposition of relations between human beings is, to a certain extent, first of all by the evaluation of everyone, and secondly only of those in this set. This is included in the pronoun “we”.

So it is clear that “we” introduces us into the world of other human references and points to another dimension of the community. It is a social dimension that differs from the previous one, that is, the interpersonal dimension of the community in the relation “I” – “you”. By analyzing this in turn, that is, the social dimension of the community, we continue to assume that the community has a specific relevance to the person as an entity in relation to the personal subjectivity of human beings, and so respect that every human being is “I” or “you”, not just “he” or “she”. “He” or “she” seems to refer primarily to the person-object as “they”. The analysis of the social dimension of the community will not only be from the position of “he”, “she” and “they”, but will also be parallel to the previous analysis, and therefore continue to some extent from the position of “I” and “you”. We also do not intend to talk about society, but only about the social dimension of the human community, which is indicated by the pronoun “we”. It must be stated at the beginning of the analysis that the pronoun refers not only to many subjects, to many human “I’s”, but also to the specific subjectivity of that multiplicity. And that is the difference between “we” and “they”.

When we say “we” are many human “I’s”, we embrace that multiplicity and try to understand it through action, just as we have tried to understand the “I” itself. “We” are many people, many entities that dwell and work together. But it is not the multiplicity of activities that run side by side. “Together” means that these actions, and with them the existence of these many “I’s”, remain in relation to a certain value, which thus deserves the name of the common good. (In this way, we do not intend to use interchangeably or to mix the concepts of value and good.) The relationship of many “I’s” to the common good seems to be the very core of the social community. Through this relationship, people, experiencing their personal subjectivity—that is, the real multiplicity of the human “I”—are aware that they constitute a certain “we” and live in this new dimension. It is a social dimension, different from the dimension “I” – “you”, though in this dimension the person remains, as do the “I” and “you”, but the direction of the relationship is essentially changed. This direction is determined by the common good. In this relationship, “I” and “you” also find their mutual reference in the new dimension, they find their “I” – “you” through the common good, which represents a new unity between them.

The best example is a marriage, which clearly outlines the relationship “I” – “you”. The interpersonal relationship takes on a social dimension when the spouses accept a set of values in the relation that can be defined as the common good of marriage and at the same time—at least potentially—the family. In relation to this good, their community appears in action and being in a new profile and at the same time in a new dimension. This is the profile of “we” and the social dimension of the community of two (not only one + one, but two), who in this dimension will not cease to be “I” and “you”. They also continue to remain in the inter-personal relationship “I” – “you”. Yes, this relationship in its own way draws from the “we” relationship and is enriched through it, which of course means that this new relationship or society also poses new tasks and requirements relevant to the inter-personal relationship “I” – “you”.

In view of the elementary outline of the “we”, we can ask—by analogy to the previous analysis—how and in what sense the process of the specific constellation of each “I” through “we” is likewise similar, as occurs in the interpersonal relationship, where “I” is constituted by “you”, as previously mentioned. Human experience confirms this. Of course, speaking of the constitution of the human “I”, we have in mind everything that has been said in the first part on the personal subjectivity of man. It is not about constituting itself in the metaphysical sense, for in this sense each “I” is constituted in its own suppositum. On the other hand, the constitution of a particular “self” in his personal subjectivity is done in a special way by acting and living “together with others” in the social community, in the different dimension of “we”. It takes place differently than in the “I” – “you” dimension; here the meaning is decisive to the common good. Through this relationship, the person, the specific “I”, finds another confirmation of his or her personal subjectivity, rather than in the interpersonal relationship. Nevertheless, this confirmation of the subject “I” in the community “we” profoundly agrees with the nature of this subject. Perhaps such verification is at the basis of everything that has ever been said about the social nature of humanity.

The essence of “we” does not mean a reduction of “I” or its distortion. If this is the case in reality (attention is paid to this in Person and Act), then the causes should be sought in the relationship to the common good. This relationship may be flawed in different ways—both in terms of the human (or many humans) “I”, as well as from the side of what is accepted as the common good of the many “I’s”.

This is an extensive field of philosophy, and above all social ethics, which we do not intend to enter in substance or comprehensively here. Just as in the analysis of the relationship between persons (“I” – “you”), we do not intend to introduce to our consideration multiple forms and varieties of social community—that is, multiple forms and varieties of social reality in which every person exists and operates (society, communities, social groups, the environment, etc.). Basically, here and in the analysis of the social dimension of the community, we intend to capture and highlight above all the importance of this dimension in terms of the personal subjectivity of the person—because of its relevance. In this aspect in which autoteleology is inherent in nature, the whole problem of its “self-fulfillment,” and hence also of the concept of community, must occur not only in the very fact of the senses (i.e. ontological and therefore metaphysical), but also in its normative meaning, i.e. ethical.

First of all, it should be stated that the “common” reference of many “I’s” to the common good – through which the multiplicity of actors revealed for themselves (and others) is defined as “we” (and it is that same “we”)—is a particular expression of the transcendent proper to the human as a person. Also, in a special way, the relation to the common good of this transcendence is realized. It is fitting here to refer to what is said in the first part of this study on transcendence and its close relationship with the self-fulfillment of the subjective “I”. Conscience as a key point of this self-fulfillment of a personal entity indicates transcendence in a special way and is at the very center of its own subjectivity. Subjective transcendence is realized in relation to truth and to good as “true” (or “equitable”). The relationship to the common good, which unites the multiplicity of entities into one “we”, should be equally grounded in relation to truth and to the “true” or “equitable.”⁸ Then the right measure of the common good will be revealed. The common good in its essence is the good of the many and in its fullest extent is the good of all. This amount can be quantitatively different: two in the case of marriage, several in the case of the family, millions when it comes to the individuals of a nation and billions when it comes to all of humanity. The concept of the common good is analogous, since the very reality of this good is subject to differentiation, and thus to the analogy of proportionality. The common good of marriage and the family is something different to that of the nation or humanity or of any particular society, community or social group, which also carries out the human “we” in the same way. Nevertheless, in all these embodiments, the common good corresponds to the transcendence of people and objects acting on the basis of the constitution of the social community as “we”.

The reality is that the common good in all its richness is the proper analogy that determines the direction of transcendence, which is at the root of the human “we”. Transcendence that belongs, however, to the structure of the human “I” is not opposed to the subjectivity of the human person, but basically corresponds to it. This does not mean, of course, that social life is a collision-free zone; we know from experience that it is quite the contrary. In Person and Act we tried to point to some variations of these collisions, signaling only the multiplicity of their shape and range. Nevertheless, the social dimension of the community is addressed in a manner adequate to the entire human person’s desire for self-fulfillment. The common good as the underlying foundation of this dimension is greater than the good of each individual “I” in a particular community. It has a superior character—and in this capacity corresponds to the subjective transcendence of the person. The overriding character of the common good, the greater fullness of its value, ultimately consists of the fact that the good of each of the subjects of that community, which defines itself as “we”, becomes more fully expressed and fully realized in that good. Thus, by the common good, the human “I” more fully and more thoroughly finds him or herself in the human “we”.

The common good is sometimes a difficult good, it is probably even a principle. We, the Poles, know from our history how much the good, whose name is “Poland” or “fatherland,” cost many people and whole generations of our countrymen. The measure of effort put into the realization of the common good, the measure of the sacrifice of so many personal possessions—including exile, imprisonment and death—attests and continues to testify to the greatness of this good, to its superiority. For example—and this is a very eloquent example—certain situations, especially those marginal and border situations, convincingly show the truth that the common good is for the good of the individual members of the human “we”. In extreme situations, it seems as if the good specified in the survival of each individual member is, in a sense, lost without the common good. This does not mean, however, that the sacrifice of one’s self or the sacrifice of life for the sake of the common good comes down to a simple “re-evaluation” between this good and the good of the individual in one community or another. The fact is that the common good acts as superior—and as such corresponds to the transcendence of the person, meets his conscience, comes to him or raises conflicts—precisely because the problem of the common good must be the central issue of social ethics. The history of societies and the evolution of social systems indicate that while we are constantly struggling for the “true” common good, which corresponds to the essence of the social community proper to the human “we” and at the same time to that personal transcendence which is proper to the human “I”, the facts speak of the continuous emergence of various types of utilitarianism, totalism, or social egoism. Already in this smallest and most basic human “we”, which is marriage and family, we meet with manifestations of various deviations, of course, from the measure of this community and its own specificities. The more the multiplicity of the human “I” grows, the more difficult—in some respects—is the social community, the unity of the human “we”, in a different dimension. As already stated, moreover, the common good is a difficult good.

A feature of this good, the reason for its superiority in relation to the goods of the individual, is—as stated—that the welfare of each of the entities of the community, which is based on the common good, who define and experience themselves as “we”, is where the good is fully expressed and fully realized. This also explains the fact of the social community, the fact that “we” is constituted by many human “I’s”. This fact alone is substantially free of utilitarianism and remains at the same time an objective basis and genuinely lived truth about the good, as well as the truth of conscience. In the name of this truth, people as members of the community take on the hardships connected with the realization of the common good, sometimes to the extreme situations mentioned above, but also in the name of the same truth about the common good. People come to all those values that constitute the true and inviolable good of the person. This is expressed in a special way in our time, as witnessed by numerous statements and actions. For the community, the human “we” in various dimensions means the shape of human multiplicity, in which the person as a subject is fully realized. There will also be a sense of common good in all its analogues, such as rationale over its ordinances that are sometimes dramatically but always fundamentally ethical, through the personal subject.

“We”, as it was said at the beginning, does not only mean the simple fact of a human’s multi-subjectivity, it does not only point to many human “I’s”, it also indicates the specific subjectivity of this multiplicity. At the very least, it points to a strong desire to achieve it. This is, of course, the tendency of a multiple to be understood and implemented in the various “we’s”, according to the proper character of each of them within the specific community. The subjectivity of many is shaped and realized differently in the case of the “we” as a family or “we” as a marriage, differently when it comes to a particular environment, community or social group, and differently when it comes to a nation, state or all of human kind. The human “I”, in these different dimensions, is willing not only to think of him or herself in terms of “we”, but to realize what is important to “us”—that is, the social community, and is therefore also, on the grounds of this community and in accordance with its human essence, ready to realize the subjectivity of the many and, in the universal dimension, the subjectivity of all. It seems that it is only on the basis of this understood social community, in which the actual multi-subjectivity develops towards the subjectivity of the many, that we can perceive the human “we” in the authentic communio personarum.

It is known, however, how many obstacles oppose the readiness of the above-mentioned as counter-dispositions that surpass it from different sides, and how we are still on the way to the realization of the human “we” in different areas, and this is how we are both advancing forward and the opposite in many situations. The question is, what prevails at different stages and how do we shape the balance of the completion of the various “we’s” and ultimately the universal “we”?

In any case, the analysis shows the social community, at this point, as the fundamental homogeneity of the personal subject and the human community. What is involved in shaping the various “we’s” in all the richness of this analogy is a clear reflection of the human “I”, the personal subjectivity of man, and which is not opposed to it. If it were the opposite, the person as subject must make corrections. The social community “we” is not only given to him or her but constantly asked of him or her. And all this confirms the thesis of the individual’s priority for the community. Without this it is impossible to defend not only the autoteleology of the human “I” but simple human teleology itself.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Selected books by Karol Wojtyła/Jan Paweł II (in chronological order)

Wojtyła, K. Doctrina de fide apud S. Ioannem a Cruce. Dissertatio ad Lauream. Roma: Pontificia Universitas S. Thomae Aquinatis, 1948 [Polish translation: Świętego Jana od Krzyża nauka o wierze (Człowiek i moralność, vol. 5). Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2000].

—. Ocena możliwości zbudowania etyki chrześcijańskiej przy założeniach systemu Maksa Schelera, first edition. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1959; New edition: Zagadnienie podmiotu moralności (Człowiek i moralność, vol. 2). Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2001.

—. Miłość i odpowiedzialność. Studium etyczne. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1960; New edition: Miłość i odpowiedzialność (Człowiek i moralność, vol. 1). Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2001 [Other editions: 1962, 1982, 1986].

—. U podstaw odnowy. Studium o realizacji Vaticanum II. Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1972.

—. „Znak, któremu sprzeciwiać się będą”. Rekolekcje w Watykanie. Rzym–Watykan, Stolica Apostolska 5–12 III 1976. Poznań–Warszawa–Kraków: Pallottinum, 1976; Full edition: Znak sprzeciwu. Rekolekcje w Watykanie od 5 do 12 marca 1976. Kraków: Znak, 1995.

—. Aby Chrystus się nami posługiwał. Kraków: Znak, 1979.

—. The Acting Person, trans. A. Potocki. Boston: Reidel Publishing Company, 1979.

Jan Paweł II, Mężczyzną i niewiastą stworzył ich. Chrystus odwołuje się do „początku”. Watykan: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1980.

Wojtyła, K. Poezje i dramaty. Kraków: Znak, 1980.

—. Elementarz etyczny. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Archidiecezji Wrocławskiej, 1982 [reprinted: Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1999].

—. Osoba i czyn, ed. M. Jaworski. Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1969; Second edtion, corrected and supplemented with footnotes and subtitles in agreement with the Author by Andrzej Półtawski. Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1985; Third extended edition: Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne, ed. T. Styczeń, W. Chudy, J.W. Gałkowski, A. Rodziński and A. Szostek (Człowiek i moralność, vol. 4). Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, [1994] 2000.

—. Akt i przeżycie etyczne (1954), Dobro i wartość (1955), Norma i szczęście (1956). Collected lectures in Wykłady lubelskie (Człowiek i moralność, vol. 3). Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, [1986] 2006.

—. Teksty poznańskie. Poznań: Księgarnia św. Wojciecha, 1986.

Jan Paweł II, „Do końca ich umiłował”. Trzecia wizyta duszpasterska w Polsce, 8–14 czerwca 1987 roku, ed. S. Dziwisz, J. Kowalczyk, and T. Rakoczy. Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1987.

Wojtyła, K. Zagadnienie wiary w dziełach św. Jana od Krzyża. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Ojców Karmelitów Bosych, 1990.

—. Człowiek w polu odpowiedzialności. Rzym–Lublin: Instytut Jana Pawła II KUL – Fundacja Jana Pawła II, 1991.

—. Człowiek drogą Kościoła, ed. K. Czajkowska. Rzym: Fundacja Jana Pawła II, 1992.

—. Person and Community: Selected Essays, trans. Th. Sandok. New York: Peter Lang, 1993.

Jan Paweł II, Przekroczyć próg nadziei. Jan Paweł II odpowiada na pytania Vittoria Messoriego. Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1994.

—. Dar i Tajemnica: w pięćdziesiątą rocznicę moich święceń kapłańskich. Kraków: Wydawnictwo św. Stanisława BM; Wydawnictwo WAM, 1996.

—. Fides et ratio. Tarnów: Biblos, 1998.

Wojtyła, K. Rozważania o istocie człowieka. Kraków: Wydawnictwo WAM, 1999.

—. O poznawalności i poznawaniu Boga. Kraków: Instytut Jana Pawła II – Wydawnictwo św. Stanisława BM, 2000.

—. Metafisica della persona. Tutte le opere filosofiche e saggi integrativi. Milano: Bompiani, 2003.

Jan Paweł II, Tryptyk rzymski: medytacje. Kraków: Wydawnictwo św. Stanisława BM, 2003.

Wojtyła, K. Poezje. Dramaty. Szkice. Tryptyk rzymski. Kraków: Znak, 2004.

Jan Paweł II, Pamięć i tożsamość. Rozmowy na przełomie tysiącleci. Kraków: Znak, 2005.

—. Dzieła Zebrane, vols. I–XVI. Kraków: Wydawnictwo M, 2006–2009.

Selected articles by Karol Wojtyła (in chronological order)

Wojtyła, K. “O humanizmie św. Jana od Krzyża,” Znak 27, no. 1 (1951), pp. 6–20.

—. “System etyczny M. Schelera jako środek do opracowania etyki chrześcijańskiej,” Polonia Sacra 6 (1953–1954), pp. 143–161.

—. “Problem oderwania przeżycia od aktu w etyce na tle poglądów Kanta i Schelera (studium),” Roczniki Filozoficzne 5, no. 3 (1955–1957), pp. 113–140.

—. “W poszukiwaniu podstaw perfekcjonizmu w etyce,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 5, no. 4 (1955–1957), pp. 303–317.

—. “Zagadnienie woli w analizie aktu etycznego,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 5, no. 1 (1955–1957), pp. 111–135.

—. “Ewangeliczna zasada naśladowania. Nauka źródeł Objawienia a system filozoficzny Maxa Schelera,” Ateneum Kapłańskie 55, no. 1 (1957), pp. 57–67.

—. “Idea i pokora,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 41 (1957).

—. “Moralność a etyka,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 9 (1957).

—. “Myśli o małżeństwie,” Znak 42, no. 7 (1957), pp. 595–604.

—. “Natura i doskonałość,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 13 (1957).

—. “Nauka źródeł Objawienia a system filozoficzny Maxa Schelera,” Ateneum Kapłańskie 55, no. 1 (1957), pp. 57–67.

—. “O pochodzeniu norm moralnych,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 11 (1957).

—. “Prawo natury,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 28 (1957).

—. “Problem bezinteresowności,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 34 (1957).

—. “Problem etyki naukowej,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 10 (1957).

—. “Problem prawdy i miłosierdzia,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 33 (1957).

—. “Realizm w etyce,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 12 (1957).

—. “Stosunek do przyjemności,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 38 (1957).

—. “Wartości,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 39 (1957).

—. “Właściwa interpretacja nauki o szczęściu,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 36 (1957).

—. “Znaczenie powinności,” Tygodnik Powszechny 11, no. 16 (1957).

—. “Etyka niezależna w świetle idei sprawiedliwości,” Tygodnik Powszechny 12, no. 6 (1958).

—. “Kamień węgielny etyki społecznej,” Tygodnik Powszechny 12, no. 1 (1958).

—. “O kierowniczej lub służebnej roli rozumu w etyce. Na tle poglądów Tomasza z Akwinu, Hume’a i Kanta,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 6, no. 2 (1958), pp. 13–31.

—. “Problem walki,” Tygodnik Powszechny 12, no. 3 (1958).

—. “Sprawiedliwość a miłość,” Tygodnik Powszechny 12, no. 2 (1958).

—. “Miłość a odpowiedzialność,” Ateneum Kapłańskie 59, no. 2 (1959), pp. 163–172.

—. “Natura ludzka jako podstawa formacji etycznej,” Znak 60, no. 6 (1959), pp. 693–697.

—. “O metafizycznej i fenomenologicznej podstawie normy moralnej (w oparciu o koncepcje św. Tomasza z Akwinu oraz Maksa Schelera),” Roczniki Teologiczno-Kanoniczne KUL 6, no. 1–2 (1959), pp. 99–124.

—. “Personalizm tomistyczny,” Znak 83, no. 5 (1961), pp. 664–675.

—. “Człowiek jest osobą,” Tygodnik Powszechny 18, no. 52 (1964).

—. “O godności osoby ludzkiej,” Notificationes a Curia Principis Metropolitae Cracoviensis ad Universum Venerabilem Clerum tam Saecularem quam Regularem 1964, pp. 287–289.

—. “Zagadnienie katolickiej etyki seksualnej. Refleksje i postulaty,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 13, no. 2 (1965), pp. 5–25.

—. “Osoba i czyn w aspekcie świadomości (fragment studium Osoba i czyn),” in Pastori et Magistro. Praca zbiorowa wydana dla uczczenia jubileuszu 50-lecia kapłaństwa Jego Ekscelencji Księdza Biskupa Doktora Piotra Kałwy Profesora i Wielkiego Kanclerza KUL. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1966, pp. 293–304.

—. “Etyka a teologia moralna,” Znak 159, no. 9 (1967), pp. 1077–1082.

—. “Osoba i czyn na tle dynamizmu człowieka,” O Bogu i o człowieku, vol. 1. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sióstr Loretanek-Benedyktynek, 1968, pp. 201–226.

—. “Osoba i czyn. Refleksyjne funkcjonowanie świadomości i jej emocjonalizacja,” Studia Theologica Varsaviensia 6 (1968), pp. 101–119.

—. “Problem doświadczenia w etyce,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 17, no. 2 (1969), pp. 5–24.

—. “Problem teorii moralności,” in W nurcie zagadnień posoborowych, ed. B. Bejze, vol. 3. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo SS. Loretanek-Benedyktynek, 1969, pp. 217–249.

—. “Osoba ludzka a prawo naturalne,” Roczniki Filozoficzne KUL 18, no. 2 (1970), pp. 53–59.

—. “Myśli o uczestnictwie. Fragmenty książki Osoba i czyn,” Znak 200–201, no. 2–3 (1971), pp. 209–225.

—. “Wypowiedź wstępna w czasie dyskusji nad Osobą i czynem w Katolickim Uniwersytecie Lubelskim, dnia 16 XI 1970,” Analecta Cracoviensia 5–6 (1973–1974), pp. 53–55; “Słowo końcowe,” pp. 243–263.

—. “O znaczeniu miłości oblubieńczej (Na marginesie dyskusji),” Roczniki Filozoficzne 22, no. 2 (1974), pp. 162–174.

—. “Rodzina jako ‘communio personarum’. Próba interpretacji teologicznej,” Ateneum Kapłańskie 83, no. 3 (1974), pp. 347–361.

—. “The Structure of Self-Determination as the Core of the Theory of the Person,” Tomasso d’Aquino nel suo Settimo Centenario: Atti del Congresso Internazionale. Roma-Napoli 1974–78: Edizioni Domenicane Italiane, 1978, pp. 379–390.

—. “Perspektywa człowieka – integralny rozwój a eschatologia,” Colloqium Salutis 7 (1975), pp. 133–145.

—. “Das Problem der Erfahrung in der Ethik,” in W 700-lecie śmierci św. Tomasza z Akwinu eds. S. Kamiński, M. Kurdziałek, Z. Zdybicka. Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1976, pp. 267–288.

—. “Osoba: podmiot i wspólnota,” Roczniki Filozoficzne KUL 24, no. 2 (1976), pp. 5–38.

—. “Teoria e prassi nella filosofica della persona umana, Sapienza,” Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e di Teologia 29, no. 4 (1976), pp. 377–384.

—. “The Intentional Act – the Human Act. That is: Act and Experience,” Analecta Husserliana 5 (1976), pp. 269–280.

—. “Participation or Alienation?,” Analecta Husserliana 6 (1977) pp. 61–73.

—. “Person: Ich und Gemeinschaft,“ Klerusblatt 57, no. 9 (1977), pp. 189–192.

—. “Antropologia encykliki Humanae vitae,” Analecta Cracoviensia 10 (1978), pp. 9–28.

—. “Subjectivity and the Irreducible in Man,” Analecta Husserliana 7 (1978), pp. 107–114.

—. “Uczestnictwo czy alienacja,” Summarium. Sprawozdania z Posiedzeń Towarzystwa Naukowego KUL 7 (1978), pp. 7–16

—. “The Person: Subject and Community,” The Review of Metaphysics 33, no. 2 (1979), pp. 273–308.

—. “Problem konstytuowania się kultury poprzez ludzką praxis,” Roczniki Filozoficzne KUL 27, no. 1 (1979), s. 9–19; reprint: Ethos 2, no. 4 (8) (1989), pp. 39–49.

—. “The Transcendence of the Person in Action and Man’s Self-Teleology,” Analecta Husserliana 9 (1979), pp. 203–212.

—. “O wolności,” Znak 325, no. 7 (1981), pp. 987–999.

—. “The Degrees of Being from the Point of View of the Phenomenology of Action,” Analecta Husserliana 11 (1981), pp. 125–130.

—. “Podmiotowość i ‘to, co nieredukowalne’ w człowieku,” Ethos 1, no. 2–3 (1988), pp. 21–28 [Subsequent reprinting: K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne, pp. 433–443. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1994].

—. “Uczestnictwo. Analiza postaw: postawy autentyczne,” Ethos 3, no. 3–4 (11–12) (1990), pp. 27–30.

—. “Gdzie znajduje się granica Europy?,” trans. J. Merecki, Ethos 7, no. 4 (28) (1994), pp. 27–34.

—. “Wspólnota ludzka w oczach Soboru,” Ethos 15, no. 3–4 (59–60) (2002), pp. 101–111.

Studies

Acosta, M., and Reimers, A.J. Karol Wojtyła’s Personalist Philosophy: Understanding Person and Act, The Catholic University of America Press, Washington D.C. 2018.

Bednarski, F.W. “Wzbogacenie metaetyki tomistycznej w rozprawach kard. K. Wojtyły,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 28, no. 2 (1980), pp. 17–45.

Biesaga, T. “Godność a wolność w antropologii Karola Wojtyły,” in Ku rozumieniu godności człowieka. Studia z bioetyki, vol. 4, ed. G. Hołub and P. Duchliński, pp. 65–76. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PAT, 2008.

Burgos, J.M. La filosofía personalista de Karol Wojtyła. Madrid: Palabra, 2013.

—. “The Method of Karol Wojtyła: A Way Between Phenomenology, Personalism and Metaphysics,” Analecta Husserliana 104 (2009), pp. 107–129.

Buttiglione, R. “Kilka uwag o sposobie czytania Osoby i czynu,” in K. Wojtyła. Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne, ed. W. Chudy, J.W. Gałkowski, A. Rodziński and A. Szostek, pp. 9–42. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2000.

—. Myśl Karola Wojtyły, trans. J. Merecki, Second extended edition. Lublin: Instytut Jana Pawła II KUL, 2010.

—. “O metodzie “Miłości i odpowiedzialności” Karola Wojtyły,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 42 , no. 2 (1994), pp. 2–42.

Crosby, J.F. “Persona et sui iuris: refleksje nad podstawami filozofii osoby Karola Wojtyły,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 32, no. 2 (1984), pp. 105–123.

Dec, I. “Osoba jako podmiot w ujęciu Karola Wojtyły,” Collectanea Theologica 57, no. 3 (1987), pp. 5–19.

—. “Podmiotowość osoby w ujęciu kard. K. Wojtyły. Z filozoficznego zaplecza encyklik Jana Pawła II,” Colloquium Salutis. Wrocławskie Studia Teologiczne 15 (1983), pp. 153–172.

—. Transcendencja człowieka w przyrodzie: ujęcie Mieczysława A. Krąpca OP i kard. Karola Wojtyły, Third revised edition. Wrocław: Papieski Wydział Teologiczny, 2011.

Dębowski, J. “Personalizm Karola Wojtyły – Jana Pawła II i jego społeczne konsekwencje,” in Rozprawy z etyki, ed. J. Pawlak and W. Tyburski, pp. 155–163. Toruń: Wydawnictwo UMK, 1999.

Dinan, S.A. “Karol Wojtyła’s Anthropology,” The New Scholasticism 55, no. 3 (1981), pp. 317–330.

Duchliński, P. “Godność osoby w ujęciu Karola Wojtyły i jego uczniów,” in Ku rozumieniu godności człowieka, ed. G. Hołub and P. Duchliński, pp. 13–64. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PAT, 2008.

Frossard, A. Nie lękajcie się. Rozmowy z Janem Pawłem II. Kraków: Znak, 1982.

Gabara, P. Pojęcie milczenia i jego funkcja w relacji między Bogiem i człowiekiem w homiliach Jana Pawła II (series: Studia nad myślą Jana Pawła II). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UPJPII, 2013.

Galarowicz, J. Blask godności: o etyce Karola Wojtyły i nie tylko. Kęty: Wydawnictwo Antyk – Marek Derewiecki, 2005.

—. Człowiek w ujęciu antropologii adekwatnej Karola Wojtyły – Jana Pawła II. Kraków: Instytut Filozofii UJ, 1986.

—. Karol Wojtyła: myśl o człowieku. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Petrus, 2014.

—. Paradoks egzystencji etycznej. Inspiracje: Ingarden – Wojtyła – Tischner (series: Studia nad myślą Jana Pawła II). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PAT, 2009.

—. “Pozwolić mówić doświadczeniu. Doświadczenie człowieka w ujęciu Karola Wojtyły,” Przegląd Powszechny, no. 7–8 (1986), pp. 66–75.

—. Wojtyła – Tischner: kapłaństwo i myślenie. Kęty: Wydawnictwo Marek Derewiecki, 2016.

Gałkowski, J.W. “Miłość i czyn Karola Wojtyły – precyzacje antropologiczno-etyczne,” Novum 13, no. 1 (1979), pp. 20–34.

—. “O podmiotowym charakterze wspólnoty w ujęciu kard. Karola Wojtyły,” Zeszyty Naukowe KUL 26, no. 4 (1983), pp. 3–17.

—. “Pozycja filozoficzna kard. Karola Wojtyły”. Referat na Międzynarodowy Kongres Filozoficzny. Rzym. Wrzesień 1980,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 29, no. 2 (1981), pp. 75–87.

—. “Praca w ujęciu kard. K. Wojtyły,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 27, no. 2 (1979), pp. 87–95.

—. “Samostanowienie osoby w ujęciu Kardynała Karola Wojtyły,” Zeszyty Naukowe KUL 22, no. 1–3 (1979), pp. 73–79.

—. Szkice o filozofii Karola Wojtyły. Lublin: Instytut Jana Pawła II, Wydawnictwo Academicon, 2017.

Grabowski, M. Miłość seksualna. Koncepcja Karola Wojtyły. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, 2012.

Hołub, G. “Karol Wojtyła and René Descartes: A comparison of the anthropological positions,” Anuario Filosofico 48, no. 2 (2015), pp. 341–358.

—. “Karol Wojtyła on the Metaphysics of the Person,” Logos i Ethos 39, no. 2 (2015), pp. 97–115.

—. “Kobiecość i męskość w spełnianiu osoby w ujęciu Karola Wojtyły,” in Wokół antropologii Karola Wojtyły (series: Zadania współczesnej metafizyki, vol. 18), ed. A. Maryniarczyk, P. Sulenta and T. Duma, pp. 395–406. Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2016.

—. “Persons as the Cause of Their Own Action: Karol Wojtyła on Efficacy,” Ethical perspectives 23, no. 2 (2016), pp. 259–275.

—. “The Human Subject and Its Interiority: Karol Wojtyła and the Crisis in Philosophical Anthropology,” Quién 4 (2016), pp. 47–66.

—. “The Relations between Consciousness and Emotions in the Thought of Karol Wojtyła,” The Person and the Challenges 5, no. 2 (2015), pp. 149–164.

Hołub, G., and Mazur, P.S. “Experience of Human Being in the Thought of Karol Wojtyła,” Filosofija. Sociologija 28, no. 1 (2017), pp. 73–83.

Jan Paweł II. Posługa myślenia (series: Studia nad myślą Jana Pawła II), ed. J. Kupczak and D. Radziechowski. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PAT, 2011.

Jaworski, M. “Koncepcja antropologii filozoficznej w ujęciu Kardynała Karola Wojtyły. Próba odczytania w oparciu o studium Osoba i czyn,” Analecta Cracoviensia, no. 5–6 (1973–1974), pp. 91–106.

Kaczyński, E. “‘Prawda o dobru’ w koncepcji moralności kard. K. Wojtyły,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 28, no. 2 (1980), pp. 47–70.

Kłósak, K, “Teoria doświadczenia człowieka w ujęciu Kardynała Karola Wojtyły,” Analecta Cracoviensia, no.5–6 (1973–1974), pp. 81–84.

Kostur, M. “Antropologiczne podstawy normy moralnej w personalizmie Karola Wojtyły,” in Z problematyki norm, zasad i mądrości praktycznej. Studium i rozprawy z etyki normatywnej, ed. P. Duchliński and T. Homa, pp. 177–202. Kraków: Akademia Ignatianum; Wydawnictwo WAM, 2015.

Kowalczyk, S.T. “Tomistyczno-fenomenologiczny personalizm kard. Karola Wojtyły,” Ateneum Kapłańskie 104, no. 1–2 (1985), pp. 84–95.

Krąpiec, M.A. “Funkcja refleksji w analizie czynu moralnego. Na marginesie pracy Ks. kard. K. Wojtyły Osoba i czyn,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 28, no. 2 (1980), pp. 114–117.

—. “Książka kardynała Karola Wojtyły monografią osoby jako podmiotu moralności,” Analecta Cracoviensia 5–6 (1973/1974), pp. 57–61.

Kupczak, J. Dar i komunia. Teologia ciała w ujęciu Jana Pawła II. Kraków: Znak, 2006.

—. Destined for Liberty: Human Person in the Philosophy of Karol Wojtyła/John Paul II. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000.

Mizdrak, I. Ku wolności i samospełnieniu człowieka. Zarys antropologii filozoficznej Karola Wojtyły (series: Studia nad myślą Jana Pawła II). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UPJPII, 2014.

Mruszczyk, M. Człowiek w “antropologii adekwatnej” Karola Wojtyły. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 2010.

Pala, A. “Mistyka św. Jana od Krzyża w filozoficznej koncepcji miłości Karola Wojtyły?,” Logos i Ethos 44, no. 1 (2017), pp. 139–157.

Piluś, H. “Problem osoby ludzkiej w ujęciu Karola Wojtyły,” Humanitas 5 (1980), pp. 131–161.

Podrez, E. “W kierunku osoby. Myśl etyczna kard. Karola Wojtyły,” Chrześcijanin w Świecie 12, no. 11–12 (95–96 (1980), pp. 127–136.

Półtawski, A. “Człowiek a świadomość. W związku z książką Kardynała Karola Wojtyły Osoba i czyn,” Analecta Cracoviensia 5–6 (1973–1974), pp. 159–175.

—. “Człowiek, czyn a świadomość – według Karola Wojtyły,” Więź 250–251, no. 2–3 (1979), pp. 44–53.

—. “Czyn a świadomość według Karola Wojtyły,” in Być człowiekiem i chrześcijaninem: praca zbiorowa. W nurcie zagadnień posoborowych,ed. B. Bejze, vol. 12, pp. 35–49. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sióstr Loretanek, 1980.

Reimers, A.J. Truth about the Good: Moral Norms in the Thought of John Paul II. Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2011.

Różyło, A., and Sztaba, M. Człowiek w refleksji Karola Wojtyły – Jana Pawła II. Wybrane aspekty adekwatnej antropologii. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Naukowe KUL, 2014.

Siarko, V. Teologia męczeństwa w ujęciu Jana Pawła II (series: Studia nad myślą Jana Pawła II).Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UPJPII, 2013.

Smuniewski, C. Niewyczerpane źródło świętości (series: Studia nad myślą Jana Pawła II). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PAT, 2008.

Styczeń, T. “Być sobą to przekraczać siebie – O antropologii Karola Wojtyły. Posłowie,” in Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne, ed. T. Styczeń, W. Chudy, J.W. Gałkowski, A. Rodziński and A. Szostek, pp. 491–526. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2000.

—. “Doświadczenie człowieka i świadczenie człowiekowi. Kardynał Karol Wojtyła: filozof-moralista,” Znak 309, no. 3 (1980), pp. 263–274.

—. “Kardynał Karol Wojtyła – filozof moralista,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 27, no. 2 (1979), pp. 1523.

—. “Metoda antropologii filozoficznej w Osobie i czynie Kard. Karola Wojtyły,” Analecta Cracoviensia 5–6 (1973–1974), pp. 107–115.

—. O etyce Karola Wojtyły – uczeń. Częstochowa: Tygodnik Katolicki “Niedziela”,1997.

—. “O metodzie antropologii filozoficznej. Na marginesie Osoby i czynu K. Wojtyły oraz Książeczki o człowieku R. Ingardena,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 21, no. 4 (1974), pp. 105–114.

Swieżawski, S. “Karol Wojtyła w Katolickim Uniwersytecie Lubelskim,” in Obecność: Karol Wojtyła w Katolickim Uniwersytecie Lubelskim, ed. M. Filipiak and A. Szostek, pp. 9–18. Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 1987.

Szczypka, J. Jan Paweł II. Rodowód. Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy PAX, 1991.

Szostek, A. “Communio personarum przez pracę,” in Jan Paweł II, Encyklika “Laborem exercens”. Tekst i komentarze, ed. J. Gałkowski, pp. 151–166. Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1986. 

—. “Doświadczenie człowieka i moralności w ujęciu kard. Karola Wojtyły,” Znak 309, no. 3 (1980), pp. 275–289.

—. “Od samostanowienia do daru z siebie i uczestnictwa. O Karola Wojtyły/Jana Pawła II koncepcji wolności,” Nauka 3 (2005), pp. 35–47.

—. “Osobowa struktura bytu ludzkiego w perspektywie moralności w ujęciu Karola Wojtyły,” Zeszyty Naukowe KUL 28, no. 3–4 (1985), pp. 27–45.

—. “Wprowadzenie,” inK. Wojtyła, Człowiek w polu odpowiedzialności, pp. 12–16. Rzym–Lublin: Ośrodek Dokumentacji Pontyfikatu Fundacji Jana Pawła II; Instytut Jana Pawła II KUL, 1991.

Ślipko, T. “Rozwój etycznej myśli Karola Wojtyły,” in Być człowiekiem i chrześcijaninem: praca zbiorowa (series: W nurcie zagadnień posoborowych, vol. 12),ed. B. Bejze, pp. 290–300. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sióstr Loretanek, 1980.

Św. Jan od Krzyża w recepcji Karola Wojtyły – Jana Pawła II. Studia nad myślą Jana Pawła II, ed. J. Machniak. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PAT, 2008.

Tomasik, H. “Osoba jako byt i norma w filozofii kardynała Karola Wojtyły,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 33–34 no. 2 (1985–1986), pp. 173–180.

Tymienicka, A.T. “A Page of History or from Osoba i czyn to The Acting Person,” Phenomenology Information Bulletin, no. 3 (1979), pp. 3–52.

Waleszczuk, Z. Solidarność w nauczaniu Jana Pawła II: Znaczenie pryncypium w świetle encyklik społecznych. Studia nad myślą Jana Pawła II. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UPJPII, 2014.

Wierzbicki, A.M. “Karola Wojtyły filozofia osoby ludzkiej jako podstawa obrony praw człowieka,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 56, no. 1 (2008), pp. 315–328.

Wilk, R.K. Osobowy charakter relacji międzyludzkich według Karola Wojtyły. Częstochowa: Paulinianum, 1996.

Wokół antropologii Karola Wojtyły, eds. A. Maryniarczyk, P. Sulenta, T. Duma. Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2016.

Wokół filozofii kardynała Karola Wojtyły, ed. I. Dec. Wrocław: Papieski Fakultet Teologiczny, 1998.

Zboralska, M. Przekraczanie siebie jako podstawa antropologii teologicznej Karola Wojtyły – Jana Pawła II (series: Studia nad myślą Jana Pawła II). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UPJPII, 2012.

Zdybicka, Z.J. “Praktyczne aspekty dociekań przedstawionych w dziele Osoba i czyn,” Analecta Cracoviensia 5–6 (1973–1974), pp. 201–205.

—. “Wojtyła,” in Powszechna encyklopedia filozofii, ed. A. Maryniarczyk, vol. 9, pp. 815–822. Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2008.

Complementary works

Biesaga, T. Podstawy etyki i bioetyki.Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UPJPII, 2016.

—. Spór o normę moralności. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PAT, 1998.

Blondel, M. L’action, vols. 1–2. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1893; rework vols. 1–2, Paris: Alcan, 1936–1937.

Brandt, R.B. Ethical Theory: The Problem of Normative and Critical Ethics. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1959 [Polish translation: Etyka. Zagadnienia etyki normatywnej i metatetyki, trans. B. Stanosz. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1996].

Burgos, J.M. Personalizm. Autorzy i tematy nowej filozofii, trans. K. Koprowski. Warszawa: Centrum Myśli Jana Pawła II, 2010.

Buttiglione, R. “Wprowadzenie,” Urodziłeś się, by kochać, ed. T. Styczeń, pp. 15–27. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1993.

Chudy, W. “Filozofia polska po II wojnie światowej,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 26, no. 1 (1990), pp. 129–141.

—. Rozwój filozofowania a “pułapka refleksji”. Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1993.

Codzienne pytania Antygony. Księga pamiątkowa ku czci Księdza Profesora Tadeusza Stycznia z okazji 70. urodzin, ed. A. Szostek, A.M. Wierzbicki. Lublin: Instytut Jana Pawła II KUL, 2001.

Crosby, J.F. Zarys filozofii osoby. Bycie osobą, trans. B. Majczyna. Kraków: Wydawnictwo WAM, 2007.

Dec, I. “Personalizm,” in Powszechna encyklopedia filozofii, vol. 8, ed. A. Maryniarczyk, pp. 122–127. Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2007.

Dybowski, M. Działanie woli (Na tle badań eksperymentalnych).Poznań: Księgarnia Akademicka Z.O.U.,1946.

—. Zależność wykonania od cech procesu woli. Warszawa: Polskie Archiwum Psychologij, 1926. 

Filozofia marksistowska, ed. J. Grudzień, H. Jankowski, T.W. Jaroszewski, W. Wesołowski. Warszawa: Polskie Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1970.

Frankfurt, H. “Wolność woli i pojęcie osoby,” trans. J. Nowotniak, in Fragmenty filozofii analitycznej. Postanowienie i odpowiedzialność moralna, ed. J. Hołówka, pp. 22–39. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Aletheia, 1997. 

Galarowicz, J. Człowiek jest osobą. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PAT, 1994.

Gałkowski, J.W. Człowiek i praca. Studia i szkice wokół chrześcijańskiej koncepcji pracy,ed. J. Wołkowski. Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy PAX, 1979.

—. “Natura, osoba, wolność,” Analecta Cracoviensia 5–6 (1973/1974), pp. 177–182.

Gilson, É. Tomizm. Wprowadzenie do filozofii św. Tomasza z Akwinu, trans. J. Rybałt. Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy PAX, 1998.

Gondek, A. “Garrigou-Lagrange Reginald Maria,” in Powszechna encyklopedia filozofii, ed. A. Maryniarczyk, vol. 3, pp. 698–701. Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu 2002.

Górka, T. “Kępiński Tadeusz,” in Encyklopedia filozofii polskiej, ed. A. Maryniarczyk, vol. 1, pp. 640–642. Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2011.

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

Hołub, G. “The person in dialogue, the person through dialogue,” Filosofija. Sociologija 27, no. 4 (2016), pp. 3–13.

Ingarden, R. O odpowiedzialności i jej podstawach ontycznych – Über die Verantwortung. Ihre ontischen Fundamente. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam Verlag, 1970 [Polish translation in: R. Ingarden, Książeczka o człowieku, trans. A. Węgrzecki, pp. 73–169. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2001].

Janeczek, S. “Radziszewski Idzi Benedykt,” in Encyklopedia filozofii polskiej, ed. A. Maryniarczyk, vol. 2, pp. 444–446. Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2011.

Jaworski, M. “Człowiek a Bóg. Zagadnienie relacji znaczeniowej pomiędzy osobą ludzką i Bogiem a problem ateizmu,” in Logos i ethos. Rozprawy filozoficzne, ed. K. Kłósak, pp. 115– 128. Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1971.

Kalinowski, J. “Metafizyka i fenomenologia osoby ludzkiej,” Analecta Cracoviensia 5–6 (1973–1974), pp. 63–71.

—. Teoria poznania praktycznego. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1960.

Kant, I. Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 4. Berlin: Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1903.

“Konstytucja duszpasterska o Kościele w świecie współczesnym Gaudium et spes,” in Sobór Watykański Drugi. Konstytucje, dekrety, deklaracje. Tekst łacińsko-polski.Paris: Éditions du Dialoge-Société, 1967.

Krajewski, K. Etyka jako filozofia pierwsza.Doświadczenie normatywnej mocy prawdy jako źródło i podstawa etyki. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Naukowe KUL, 2006.

Kuc, L. “Przyczynek do konstrukcji tematyki antropologii chrześcijańskiej,” Studia Theologica Varsaviensia 12, no. 1 (1974), pp.289–302.

—. “Zagadnienia antropologii chrześcijańskiej,” Studia Theologica Varsaviensia 9, no. 2 (1971), pp. 95–109.

Merleau-Ponty, M. Le problème des sciences de l’homme selon Husserl. Paris: Tournier & Constans, 1953.

Majewska, M. “Ingarden Roman,” in Encyklopedia filozofii polskiej, ed. A. Maryniarczyk, vol. 1, pp. 524–528. Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2011.

Maryniarczyk, A., and Krąpiec, M.A. “Lubelska szkoła filozoficzna,” in Encyklopedia filozofii polskiej, ed. A. Maryniarczyk, vol. 1, pp. 894–912. Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2011.

Nagel, T. “What Is it Like to Be a Bat?” Philosophical Review 84, no. 4 (1974), pp. 435–450 [Polish translation in: T. Nagel, Pytania ostateczne, trans. A. Romaniuk. Warszawa: Fundacja Aletheia, 1997].

Pascal, B. Myśli, trans. T. Żeleński. Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy PAX, 2002.

Picker, E. Godność człowieka i ludzkie życie: rozbrat dwóch fundamentalnych wartości jako wyraz narastającej relatywizacji człowieka, trans. J. Merecki. Warszawa: Oficyna Naukowa, 2007.

Piech, S.L. “Michalski Konstanty,” in Encyklopedia filozofii polskiej, vol. 2, ed. A. Maryniarczyk, pp. 134–139. Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2011.

Podgórski, R. “Osoba ludzka w personalistycznej myśli Karola Wojtyły,” in Narracje postkryzysowe w humanistyce, ed. D. Kotuła, A. Piórkowska and A. Poterała, pp. 121–138. Olsztyn: Uniwersytet Warmińsko-Mazurski, 2014.

Półtawski, A. “Ethical Action and Consciousness,” Analecta Husserliana 7 (1978), pp. 115–150.

—. Realizm fenomenologii: Husserl, Ingarden, Stein, Wojtyła: odczyty i rozprawy. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Rolewski, 2000.

Rodziński, A. Osoba, moralność, kultura. Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1989.

Schaff, A. Narodziny i rozwój filozofii marksistowskiej. Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza, 1950.

Scheler, M. Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik. Neuer Versuch der Grundlegung eines ethischen Personalismus. Halle: Verlag von Max Niemeyer, 1913–1916; Bern: Francke Verlag, 1954.

Seifert, J. Back to Things in Themselves: A Phenomenological Foundation of Classical Realism. London: Routledge, 2015.

—. Essere e Persona. Verso una fondazione fenomenologica di una metafisica classica e personalistica. Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1989.

Spaemann, R. Osoby. O różnicy między “czymś” a “kimś”, trans. J. Merecki. Warszawa: Oficyna Naukowa, 2001.

Stevenson, C.L. Ethics and Language. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1944.

Stróżewski, W. “Doświadczenie i interpretacja,” in Servo veritatis. Materiały sesji naukowej poświęconej myśli Karola Wojtyły – Jana Pawła II, ed. W. Stróżewski, pp. 261–281. Warszawa–Kraków: Wydawnictwo UJ; Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1988.

Styczeń, T. “Antropologia a etyka,” in T. Styczeń, W drodze do etyki, pp. 121–130. Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1984.

—. “Człowiek w polu odpowiedzialności za siebie i drugich,” Communio 2, no. 2 (1982), pp. 45–69.

—. “O metodzie antropologii filozoficznej,” in T. Styczeń, W drodze do etyki, pp. 131–138. Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1984.

—. “Osoba – podmiot we wspólnocie. Status questionis,” Zeszyty Naukowe KUL 28, no. 3–4 (1985), pp. 3–27.

—. Problem możliwości etyki jako empirycznie uprawomocnionej i ogólnie ważnej teorii moralności. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1972.

—. Rozum i wiara wobec pytania: kim jestem? Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2001.

—. “Transcendencja – drugie imię osoby, czyli człowiek widziany z niskości doświadczenia samego siebie i z wysokości samego krzyża,” Znak 401, no. 4 (1988), pp. 3–23.

—. Zarys etyki. Cz. 1: Metaetyka. Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1974.

Szostek, A. Natura, rozum, wolność. Filozoficzna analiza koncepcji twórczego rozumu we współczesnej teologii moralnej. Rzym: Fundacja Jana Pawła II, 1990.

—. “Rola pojęcia godności w etyce,” Studia Filozoficzne 27, no. 8–9 (1983), pp. 77–91.

—. Wokół godności, prawdy i wolności Rozważania etyczne. Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1995.

Tkaczyk, M. “Koło krakowskie,” in Encyklopedia filozofii polskiej, ed. A. Maryniarczyk, vol. 1, pp. 689–692. Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2011.

Woleński, J. “Lwowsko-warszawska szkoła,” in Encyklopedia filozofii polskiej,ed. A. Maryniarczyk, vol. 1, pp. 919–927. Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2011.

Wolicka, E. “Uczestnictwo we wspólnocie,” Więź 22, no. 2–3 (1979), pp. 54–62.

—. “Znakowy charakter uczestnictwa,” Zeszyty Naukowe KUL 22, no. 1–3 (1979), pp. 109–122.

K. Wojtyła, Doctrina de fide apud S. Ioannem a Cruce. Dissertatio ad Lauream (Romae: Pontificia Universitas S. Thomae Aquinatis, 1948); Polish edition: Świętego Jana od Krzyża nauka o wierze (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2000).

K. Wojtyła, Ocena możliwości zbudowania etyki chrześcijańskiej przy założeniach systemu Maksa Schelera (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1959).

K. Wojtyła, Akt i przeżycie etyczne (1954), Dobro i wartość (1955), Norma i szczęście (1956). These lectures were collected in Wykłady lubelskie (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2006 [1986]).

K. Wojtyła, Miłość i odpowiedzialność (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1960).

K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn (Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1969).

K. Wojtyła, U podstaw odnowy. Studium o realizacji Vaticanum II (Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1972).

K. Wojtyła, “O humanizmie św. Jana od Krzyża,” in K. Wojtyła, Świętego Jana od Krzyża nauka o wierze (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2000), p. 238.

A. Frossard, Nie lękajcie się. Rozmowy z Janem Pawłem II (Kraków: Znak, 1982) pp. 18–19.

K. Wojtyła, Rozważania o istocie człowieka (Kraków: Wydawnictwo WAM, 1999), p. 16.

Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Fides et ratio, no. 83.

K. Wojtyła, “Podmiotowość i ‘to, co nieredukowalne’ w człowieku,” in K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1994), p. 440.

K. Wojtyła, “Akt i przeżycie etyczne,” in K. Wojtyła, Wykłady lubelskie (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2006), p. 23.

K. Wojtyła, “Problem oderwania przeżycia od aktu w etyce na tle poglądów Kanta i Schelera,” in K. Wojtyła, Zagadnienie podmiotu moralności (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2001), pp. 177–178.

“Kant formulated this elementary principle of the moral order in the following imperative: ‘Proceed in such a way that a person is never just a means of your action, but always a goal.’ In the light of previous arguments, this principle should not be formulated in the wording given to it by Kant, but rather in the following wording: ‘Whatever in your personal conduct is the subject of action, you must remember that you can not treat it only as a means to an end, as a tool, but to reckon with the fact that it has itself or should have its own purpose’.” K. Wojtyła, Miłość i odpowiedzialność (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1986), p. 30.

K. Wojtyła, Poezje, Dramaty, Szkice. Tryptyk rzymski (Kraków: Znak, 2007).

K. Wojtyła, Świętego Jana od Krzyża nauka o wierze, p. 9.

K. Wojtyła, Miłość i odpowiedzialność (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1960).

K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn (Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1969).

R. Buttiglione, “Kilka uwag o sposobie czytania osoby i czynu,” in K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2000), p. 17.

J. Woleński, “Lwowsko-warszawska szkoła,” in Encyklopedia filozofii polskiej, ed. A. Maryniarczyk, vol. 1 (Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2011), pp. 919–921.

M. Tkaczyk, “Koło krakowskie,” in Encyklopedia filozofii polskiej, vol. 1, p. 689ff.

J. Woleński, “Lwowsko-warszawska szkoła,” pp. 919–921.

S. Janeczek, “Radziszewski Idzi Benedykt,” in Encyklopedia filozofii polskiej, ed. A. Maryniarczyk, vol. 2 (Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2011), p. 444ff.

W. Gretka, “Wais Kazimierz,” in Encyklopedia filozofii polskiej, vol. 2, pp. 775–776.

K. Wais, Ontologja czyli metafizyka ogólna (Lwów: Biblioteka Religijna, 1926).

Karol Wojtyła, as John Paul II, was speaking with André Frossad. See A. Frossard, Rozmowy z Janem Pawłem II (Kraków: Znak, 1982), p. 19.

S.L. Piech, “Michalski Konstanty,” in Encyklopedia filozofii polskiej, vol. 2, pp. 134–135.

Z. Hajduk, “Kłósak Kazimierz,” in Encyklopedia filozofii polskiej, vol. 1, pp. 652–655.

A. Gondek, “Garrigou-Lagrange Reginald Maria,” in Powszechna encyklopedia filozofii, ed. A. Maryniarczyk, vol. 3 (Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2002), p. 698.

A. Maryniarczyk and M.A. Krąpiec, “Lubelska szkoła filozoficzna,” in Encyklopedia filozofii polskiej, vol. 1, p. 895.

W. Chudy, “Filozofia polska po II wojnie światowej,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 26, no. 1 (1990), pp. 131–132.

A. Schaff, Narodziny i rozwój filozofii marksistowskiej (Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza, 1950), p. 403. The manual of Marxist philosophy from 1970 points to neo-Thomism, existentialism and personalism as those that were most often criticized by Marxist philosophers. See: Filozofia marksistowska, ed. J. Grudzień, H. Jankowski, T.W. Jaroszewski, W. Wesołowski (Warszawa: Polskie Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1970), p. 3.

Z. Majewska, “Ingarden Roman,” in Encyklopedia filozofii polskiej, vol. 1, pp. 524–528.

K. Wojtyła, Zagadnienie wiary w dziełach św. Jana od Krzyża (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Ojców Karmelitów Bosych, 1990).

Shortly before his pontificate, Wojtyła wrote an important article summarizing to a large extent the ideas contained in Person and Act (Osoba i czyn), but also evoking ideas that are essential to dialogical thought. This is the position in: K. Wojtyła, “Osoba: podmiot i wspólnota,” Roczniki Filozoficzne 24, no. 2 (1976), pp. 5–39. This article reveals the author’s growing interest in the philosophy of dialogue, which was later confirmed by frequent contacts with Emmanuel Lévinas, which he considered an important contemporary philosophy. See: John Paul II, Przekroczyć próg nadziei. Jan Paweł II odpowiada na pytania Vittoria Messoriego (Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1994), p. 46.

I. Dec, “Personalizm,” in Powszechna encyklopedia filozofii, ed. A. Maryniarczyk, vol. 8 (Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2007), pp. 122–127.

At the beginning of Person and Act, Wojtyła quotes number 77 from this constitution: “The Church, by reason of her role and competence, is not identified in any way with the political community nor bound to any political system. She is at once a sign and a safeguard of the transcendent character of the human person.” See: K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn, p. 51.

T. Górka, “Kępiński Tadeusz,” in Encyklopedia filozofii polskiej, vol. 1, pp. 640–642.

K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn (Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1969).

K. Wojtyła, “Elementarz etyczny,” in K. Wojtyła, Aby Chrystus się nami posługiwał (Kraków: Znak, 1979), pp. 129–184.

K. Wojtyła, Wykłady lubelskie (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1986).

K. Wojtyła, Człowiek w polu odpowiedzialności (Rzym–Lublin: Instytut Jana Pawła II KUL; Fundacja Jana Pawła II, 1991); K. Wojtyła, “Problem doświadczenia w etyce,” Roczniki Filozoficzne KUL 17, no. 2 (1969), pp. 5–25; K. Wojtyła, “Problem teorii moralności,” in W nurcie zagadnień posoborowych, vol. 1, ed. B. Bejze (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sióstr Loretanek-Benedyktynek, 1969), pp. 217–251.

K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn, pp. 22–23.

W. Stróżewski, “Doświadczenie i interpretacja,” in Servo veritatis. Materiały sesji naukowej poświęconej myśli Karola Wojtyły – Jana Pawła II, ed. W. Stróżewski (Warszawa–Kraków: Wydawnictwo UJ; Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1988), pp. 228, 261–281.

K. Wojtyła, Problem doświadczenia w etyce, p. 6.

Ibidem, p. 12.

Ibidem, p. 8.

Ibidem, p. 13.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, p. 14.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, p. 18.

Ibidem, p. 19.

K. Wojtyła, Problem teorii moralności, p. 221.

Ibidem, p. 227.

Ibidem, p. 244.

Ibidem, p. 245.

Ibidem, p. 246.

K. Krajewski, Etyka jako filozofia pierwsza. Doświadczenie normatywnej mocy prawdy jako źródło i podstawa etyki (Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 2006), p. 133.

Ibidem. p. 132.

Ibidem, p. 74.

T. Styczeń, “Antropologia a etyka,” in T. Styczeń, W drodze do etyki (Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 1984), p. 121.

Jan Paweł II, Mężczyzną i niewiastą stworzył ich (Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 2011), p. 34.

K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn, pp. 244–245.

K. Wojtyła, “Osoba: podmiot i wspólnota,” in K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne, p. 385.

Jan Paweł II, Mężczyzną i niewiastą stworzył ich, p. 160.

See a wonderful analysis of this process in E. Picker, Godność człowieka a ludzkie życie: rozbrat dwóch fundamentalnych wartości jako wyraz narastającej relatywizacji człowieka, trans. J. Merecki (Warszawa: Oficyna Naukowa, 2007).

F. Kafka, Przemiana, trans. J. Kydryński, in F. Kafka, Opowieści i przypowieści (Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 2016), pp. 127–186.

See: R. Spaemann, Osoby. O różnicy między “czymś” a “kimś”, trans. J. Merecki (Warszawa: Oficyna Naukowa, 2001).

Above all in the text “Osobowa struktura samostanowienia,” in K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne, op. cit.

See: R. Spaemann, Osoby. O różnicy między “czymś” a “kimś”, p. 43.

H. Frankfurt, “Wolność woli i pojęcie osoby,” trans. J. Nowotniak, in Filozofia moralności. Postanowienie i odpowiedzialność moralna, ed. J. Hołówka (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Aletheia, 1997), pp. 22–39.

See the important text by Wojtyła on this topic: “Podmiotowość i ‘to, co nieredukowalne’ w człowieku,” in K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn i inne studia antropologiczne, pp. 433–443.

See, for example, the chapter “Pożądanie i wola” in Étienne Gilson’s book Tomizm. Wprowadzenie do filozofii św. Tomasza z Akwinu, trans. J. Rybałt (Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy PAX, 1998).

K. Wojtyła, Osoba: podmiot i wspólnota, pp. 389–390.

K. Wojtyła, Poezje i dramaty (Kraków: Znak, 1979), p. 60.

Codzienne pytania Antygony. Księga pamiątkowa ku czci Księdza Profesora Tadeusza Stycznia z okazji 70. urodzin, ed. A. Szostek and A.M. Wierzbicki (Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 2001), p. 45.

T. Styczeń, “Być sobą to przekraczać siebie. O antropologii Karola Wojtyły,” in K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne, pp. 496–497.

Ibidem, pp. 93–94.

T. Styczeń, “O metodzie antropologii filozoficznej,” in T. Styczeń, W drodze do etyki (Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1984), p. 136.

T. Styczeń, Rozum i wiara wobec pytania: kim jestem? (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2001), p. 84.

R. Buttiglione, “Wprowadzenie,” in T. Styczeń, Urodziłeś się, by kochać (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1993), p. XVIII.

See B. Pascal, Myśli, trans. T. Żeleński (Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy PAX, 2002), no. 359.

See T. Nagel, “What Is it Like to Be a Bat?” Philosophical Review 84, no. 4 (1974), pp. 435–450. Polish edition: T. Nagel, Pytania ostateczne, trans. A. Romaniuk (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Aletheia, 1997).

For a more extensive reflection on this topic, see: W. Chudy, Rozwój filozofowania a “pułapka refleksji” (Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1993).

Jan Paweł II, “Odpowiedzialność za prawdę poznaną i przekazywaną (Przemówienie do świata nauki w auli KUL, 9 VI 1987 r.),” in “Do końca ich umiłował”. Trzecia wizyta duszpasterska w Polsce, 8–14 czerwca 1987 roku (Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1987), p. 45.

K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne, p. 51.

K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne, p. 308.

Ibidem.

K. Wojtyła, “Podmiotowość i to ‘to, co nieredukowalne’ w człowieku,” in K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne, p. 438.

Wojtyła indicates that, in the approach of Thomas Aquinas, it “may seem that there is no room for the analysis of consciousness and self-awareness as completely specific manifestations of the person-subject”. Thomas “shows the disposition of the human person to consciousness and self-awareness. … However, the analysis of awareness and self-awareness … as if there was no place in its objective view of reality.” See: K. Wojtyła, “Personalizm tomistyczny,” in K. Wojtyła, Aby Chrystus się nami posługiwał, pp. 435–436.

In his writings, Wojtyła often emphasizes the role of the interior of the person as the sphere of existence, without which it can not be properly understood. See, for example, “To, kim jest człowiek sam w sobie, wiąże się nade wszystko z jego wnętrzem.” K. Wojtyła, “Człowiek jest osobą,” in K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne, p. 418.

The interior of a person cannot be understood without its externality, and vice versa—externality is significantly conditioned by what constitutes the inner world of a person. Because of this, a person cannot be reduced to consciousness and inner experiences, or to his corporeality. See: G. Hołub, “The Human Subject and Its Interiority: Karol Wojtyła and the Crisis in Philosophical Anthropology,” Quién 4 (2016), pp. 47–66.

K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne, p. 55.

K. Wojtyła, Osoba: podmiot i wspólnota, p. 393.

Tadeusz Styczeń, commenting on Wojtyła’s thought, says that “discovering myself in myself, I discover in myself the truth about every other, I discover in myself basically every other.” See T. Styczeń, “Być sobą to przekraczać siebie. O antropologii Karola Wojtyły. Posłowie,” in K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn oraz inne studia antropologiczne, p. 507.

K. Wojtyła, Osoba: podmiot i wspólnota, pp. 398–399.

Ibidem, p. 400.

Ibidem, p. 401.

K. Wojtyła, Miłość i odpowiedzialność (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1986), p. 26.

Wojtyła states: “The survival of one’s personal subjectivity is not just a complete update of everything that is virtually contained in the suppositum humanum, in metaphysical subjectivity.” See: K. Wojtyła, Osoba: podmiot i wspólnota, p. 387.

See: G. Hołub, “The person in dialogue, the person through dialogue,” Filosofija. Sociologija 27, no. 4 (2016), pp. 3–13.

K. Wojtyła, Osoba: podmiot i wspólnota, p. 402.

Ibidem, p. 397.

Ibidem, p. 403.

Ibidem, p. 408.

Ibidem, p. 403.

Ibidem, p. 404.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, p. 406.

J. Galarowicz, Karol Wojtyła. Myśl o człowieku (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Petrus, 2014), p. 189.

K. Wojtyła, Osoba: podmiot i wspólnota, p. 406.

K. Wojtyła, Rozważania o istocie człowieka (Lublin: Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, 2016).

K. Wojtyła, “Elementarz etyczny,” in K. Wojtyła, Aby Chrystus się nami posługiwał (Kraków: Znak, 1979), pp. 129–184.

K. Wojtyła, “Natura ludzka jako podstawa formacji etycznej,” in K. Wojtyła, Aby się nami Chrystus posługiwał, pp. 425–429.

K. Wojtyła, “Personalizm tomistyczny,” in K. Wojtyła, Aby Chrystus się nami posługiwał, pp. 430–441.

M. Jaworski, “Koncepcja antropologii filozoficznej w ujęciu Kard. Karola Wojtyły,” Analecta Cracoviensia 5–6 (1973–1974), pp. 91–106.

K. Wojtyła, Człowiek w polu odpowiedzialności (Rzym–Lublin: Instytut Jana Pawła II KUL; Fundacja Jana Pawła II, 1991).

K. Wojtyła, Elementarz etyczny, p. 180.

Ibidem, p. 136.

Ibidem, p. 137.

Ibidem, p. 138.

Ibidem, p. 142.

Ibidem, p. 140.

Ibidem.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, p. 141.

Ibidem.

Ibidem.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, pp. 145–146.

Ibidem, p. 170.

Ibidem, p. 147.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, p. 148.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, p. 148.

Ibidem, p. 150.

Ibidem, p. 157.

K. Wojtyła, “Personalizm tomistyczny,” in K. Wojtyła, Aby Chrystus się nami posługiwał, p. 435.

K. Wojtyła, “Osoba ludzka a prawo naturalne”, Roczniki Filozoficzne 18, no. 2 (1970), p. 54.

J. Kalinowski claims that Wojtyła narrowed St. Thomas’s concept of nature and that therefore he was often forced in Person and Act to oppose nature to the person. See: J. Kalinowski, “Metafizyka i fenomenologia osoby ludzkiej,” Analecta Cracoviensia 5–6 (1973–1974), p. 70.

K. Wojtyła, Osoba i czyn, p. 17.

A. Szostek, “Wprowadzenie,” in K. Wojtyła, Człowiek w polu odpowiedzialności, p. 12.

Ibidem.

K. Wojtyła, Człowiek w polu odpowiedzialności, p. 19.

Ibidem, s. 17

K. Wojtyła, “Problem doświadczenia w etyce”, Roczniki Filozoficzne KUL 17, no. 2 (1969), pp. 5–25; K. Wojtyła, “Problem teorii moralności,” in W nurcie zagadnień posoborowych, vol. 3, ed. B. Bejze (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sióstr Loretanek-Benedyktynek, 1969), pp. 217–249.

T. Styczeń, Problem możliwości etyki jako empirycznie uprawomocnionej i ogólnie ważnej teorii moralności (Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 1972).

T. Styczeń, Zarys etyki. Cz. 1: Metaetyka (Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 1974).

K. Wojtyła, Człowiek w polu odpowiedzialności, pp. 55–56.

Ibidem, p. 57.

Ibidem.

Ibidem, p. 59.

Ibidem, p. 58.

Ibidem, p. 63.

Ibidem.

For a discussion regarding both norms see: T. Biesaga, Spór o normę moralności (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PAT, 1998), p. 254ff.

K. Wojtyła, Człowiek w polu odpowiedzialności, p. 85.

Ibidem, p. 86.

Ibidem.

S. Swieżawski, “Karol Wojtyła w Katolickim Uniwersytecie Lubelskim,” in Obecność: Karol Wojtyła w Katolickim Uniwersytecie Lubelskim, ed. M. Filipiak and A. Szostek (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1987), pp. 9–18.

For example, Juan Burgos considers this mainly in the aspect of the theory of cognition and defines the method of Wojtyła as the overworking of Thomistic gnoseology. See J.M. Burgos, “The Method of Karol Wojtyła: A Way Between Phenomenology, Personalism and Metaphysics,” Analecta Husserliana 104 (2009), p. 110.

See chapter in this book: “The anthropology of Karol Wojtyła as viewed by Tadeusz Styczeń” (author: J. Merecki).

A. Szostek, Natura, rozum, wolność. Filozoficzna analiza koncepcji twórczego rozumu we współczesnej teologii moralnej (Rzym: Fundacja Jana Pawła II, 1990).

A. Szostek, Wokół godności prawdy i miłości. Rozważania etyczne (Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1998), p. 8.

J. Gałkowski, “Człowiek – urzeczywistnienie przez pracę?” in J. Gałkowski, Człowiek i praca. Studia i szkice wokół chrześcijańskiej koncepcji pracy, ed. J. Wołkowski (Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy PAX, 1979), p. 168.

T. Biesaga, Podstawy etyki i bioetyki (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UPJPII, 2016), pp. 260ff and 358ff.

A. Półtawski, Realizm fenomenologii: Husserl, Ingarden, Stein, Wojtyła: odczyty i rozprawy (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Rolewski, 2000); A. Półtawski, “Ethical Action and Consciousness”, Analecta Husserliana 7 (1978), pp. 115–150; J. Galarowicz, Człowiek jest osobą. Podstawy antropologii filozoficznej Karola Wojtyły (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PAT, 1994); J. Galarowicz, Karol Wojtyła. Myśl o człowieku (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Petrus, 2014).

K. Wojtyła, The Acting Person, trans. A. Potocki (Boston: Reidel, 1979).

Tymieniecka even talks about her cooperation in creating a new version of Wojtyła’s study. See A.-T. Tymieniecka, “A Page of History or from Osoba i czyn to The Acting Person,” Phenomenology Information Bulletin, no. 3 (1979), pp. 3–52. However, this does not change the fact that this item has not yet received its proper reception in the Anglophone world. A new translation is necessary.

K. Wojtyła, Person and Community: Selected Essays, trans. T. Sandok (New York: Peter Lang 1993).

A.J. Reimers, Truth about the Good: Moral Norms in the Thought of John Paul II (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2011).

In the introduction to his book about the human person, this philosopher declares: “when writing this book, I took up the thought of Karol Wojtyła with a long and deep reflection.” See J.F. Crosby, Zarys filozofii osoby. Bycie osobą, trans. B. Majczyna (Kraków: Wydawnictwo WAM, 2007), p. 14.

J. Seifert, Back to Things in Themselves: A Phenomenological Foundation of Classical Realism (London: Routledge, 2015); J. Seifert, Essere e Persona. Verso una fondazione fenomenologica di una metafisica classica e personalistica (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1989).

R. Butiglione, Myśl Karola Wojtyły, trans. J. Merecki (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1996).

K. Wojtyła, Metafisica della persona. Tutte le opere filosofiche e saggi integrativi (Milano: Bompiani 2003).

See for example: J.M. Burgos, Personalizm. Autorzy i tematy nowej filozofii, trans. K. Koprowski (Warszawa: Centrum Myśli Jana Pawła II, 2010); J.M. Burgos, La filosofía personalista de Karol Wojtyła, Madrid: Palabra, 2013).

In phenomenological terms, experience is the source and basis of all knowledge of objects; this does not mean, however, that there is only one kind of experience, and that this experience is a “sensory,” “external or internal” observation, as modern empiricists claim. For phenomenologists, “direct experience” is every cognitive act in which the object itself is in the original, or, as Husserl says, “bodily self-given” (leibhaft selbstgegeben). There are so many variants of experience in which individual objects are given, e.g. the experience of someone else’s individual mental facts or aesthetic experience, of when we are given works of art, etc. The problems of experience and of the whole methodological issue have found a wide resonance in the discussions of Polish philosophers on Person and Act. See the statements in Analecta Cracoviensia 5–6 (1973–1974) by J. Kalinowski, Fr. M. Jaworski, T. Styczeń SDS and K. Kłósak. Taking a different position to Kalinowski, Jaworski emphasizes the specificity of the human experience that underpins his understanding.

This line of research is seen in the classic work of M. Blondel, L’action (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1893; rework vols. 1–2, Paris: Alcan, 1936–1937).

It is peculiar that the authors representing the so-called study of colloquial language in ethics, especially its Anglo-American representatives, nearly all lack anthropological considerations, or are limited to marginalized reflections on the freedom of the will and determinism. See for example: C.L. Stevenson, Ethics and Language (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1944) or the work of his main critic: R.B. Brandt, Ethical Theory: The Problem of Normative and Critical Ethics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1959).

The reference to methodological procedures used in mathematics seems to illustrate well the sense and the extent to which we are going to study this use of “exclusion before the parentheses.” It is about the exclusion of the essence of ethical issues in favor of essentially anthropological problems. On the other hand, there is no way to exclude the essence of the present existence (epoché) from the phenomenological method of Edmund Husserl. The study is not designed according to the strict eutectic method. At the same time, the author is, from the beginning to the end, of the understanding of man as a person, which is also a specific “eidos.”

Phenomenologists talk about knowing what is important (in our case, we would talk about knowing what is important in the fact of the “human act”). This understanding they call “the seeing of the essence” or “ideation” and is specified a priori. The idea, however, comes from the individual, as an example and as emphasized (see for example M. Merleau-Ponty, Le problème des sciences de l’homme selon Husserl [Paris: Tournier & Constans, 1953]), and is just an attempt to deepen the traditional notion of induction in opposition to its positivist understanding as generalizing a series of co-occurrences of alien elements into other similar cases.

The issue of practical knowledge according to Aristotelian-Thomistic assumptions (including Kant’s and contemporary philosophy) is the subject of study by J. Kalinowski in Teoria poznania praktycznego (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1960). In this work we do not intend to deal with practical knowledge as a specific source and foundation of human praxis. However, we do intend to exploit the praxis itself as a source of knowledge of the human-person.

It seems that this formulation not only explains the purpose that the author intended for this study, but also touches on the above-mentioned problem of priorities in the mutual “theory–praxis” references. It is also about the very meaning of the philosophical and scientific knowledge to which this study also wishes to contribute.

The author devoted quite a lot of time to the analysis of M. Scheler’s philosophy, especially his Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik. Neuer Versuch der Grundlegung eines ethischen Personalismus (Halle: Verlag von Max Niemeyer, 1913–1916; Bern: Francke Verlag, 1954). Contained in this, and central to our investigation, is Scheler’s critique of Kant, which has become in turn an opportunity to rethink and partially accept certain elements of Kantian personalism. This refers in particular to his “ethical” personalization, which finds its expression in Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (Riga, 1785) in I. Kant, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 4 (Berlin: Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1903), pp. 385–463.

The discussion between Scheler’s views (die materiale Wertethik) and Kant’s views (der Formalismus in the Ethik) considers sui generis a “starting point” for the shaping in this study of the reflections on the person and the act. This discussion—although directly concerned with the concept of ethics—at the same time “worked” in the depths of the concept of man, and especially the concept of the person, which philosophy (and theology) inherited from Boethius, and provoked and even somewhat forced a new approach and a new outline for these concepts.

This tendency can also be seen in the writings of Roman Ingarden. The first edition of this paper appeared before Ingarden’s publication of his dissertation O odpowiedzialności i jej podstawach ontycznych – Über die Verantwortung. Ihre ontischen Fundamente (Stuttgart: Reclam Verlag, 1970).

At the time of writing this study, the author was participating in the work of the Second Vatican Council, which also became an impetus for reflection on the person. It is enough to mention that one of the main documents of this Council, the pastoral constitution of Gaudium et spes, not only puts the matter of the person and his vocation to the fore, but also expresses its conviction of its transcendent character: “The Church, by reason of her role and competence, is not identified in any way with the political community nor bound to any political system. She is at once a sign and a safeguard of the transcendent character of the human person” (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et spes, 76). Translation from: http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_cons_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html (accessed October 10, 2018).

See: M. Dybowski, Zależność wykonania od cech procesu woli (Warszawa: Związek Polskiego Nauczycielstwa Szkół Powszechnych, 1926); M. Dybowski, Działanie woli (Na tle badań eksperymentalnych) (Poznań: Księgarnia Akademicka, 1946).

See: Summa Theologiae, I–II, q. 56, a. 3. St. Thomas says the following about moral efficiency, that is, virtues: “ab huiusmodi habitibus simpliciter dicitur homo bonum operari et esse bonus” (simpliciter here means “essential,” and so “a person,” not only “in some way”). We further read: “non enim dicitur simpliciter aliquis homo bonus, ex hoc quod est sciens vel artifex: sed dicitur bonus solum secundum quid, puta bonus grammaticus, aut bonus faber.”

Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern Word Gaudium et spes (no. 24). Translation from: http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html (accessed October 10, 2018).

“The value of the person”—i.e. the person as a person and not as, for example, a specific individual nature in its own way—is the person who “reads” as a very specific and elementary value, regardless of its or any other physical or mental qualification, from its external or internal “state of possession”: the person in this sense is the subject of possible initiatives and engagements, constitutionally “his own” is single and indivisible, so he cannot be “even a little” something or someone else—without prejudice to their (as well as to others’) identities—“to host” other persons and “to live” in them as a “gift” enjoying mutual affirmation in the community of persons. The act of “self-regulation”—after achieving personal authority over his own nature—not only regards his actions but his cognitive and appetitive “attitudes,” through which it contacts the world of people and the world of things. Regardless of what this “self-determinant” provocation demonstrates in it, nature is already determined in a specific way, including sexuality, which is its innate and constant “internal circumstance” of moral conduct, as well as a specific “instrumental” which works and “satisfies” its fate.

For this reason, the confession of a Philo—“I love you Laura, madly and all that, like you!”—would not be recognized as an expression of love, when that is what it is about.

The expression “balances” or “occupies” here means: subordinates the desire to have a person desire for her absolute good (happiness). This “balance” would be shaken if the first of these desires were dominant. We would be dealing with selfishness: the desire of another person at the expense of their own good. Love, which by definition is an act of affirmation of the person for her, does not preclude it, however, it is the desire to bond as closely as possible to someone whom she affirms in this way.

In this way, love as an attitude of kindness (the intention of love), or “good will” (bene-volentia), finds its objectified expression and authentication in a good deed in relation to the beloved person, in the “will of good,” effectively serving its existence and development (bene-ficentia).

In the love of the person to the person, there is a remarkable incompatibility between the size of the good he desires for the beloved and the possibility of this being fulfilled. The love-bearer is not able to give love to an immortal life, though by loving it he wants it for her and would undoubtedly bestow it upon her if he were omnipotent. This is also the reason why “he really wants God for her.” Experiencing the relationship of love with the affirmation of life (existence) demands—as a result of the metaphysical interpretation—the recognition that the death of personal existence in the perspective of the Creator of Love can only be a transition to a higher form of life. Morte fortius caritas.

Fr. L. Kuc is a part of the discussion on Person and Act and comes from the same view that he holds with regard to the issue of person-community; in addition to the quoted statements in the discussion on the Person and Act, he spoke in the aforementioned interdisciplinary session (“Przyczynek do konstrukcji tematyki antropologii chrześcijańskiej,” Studia Theologica Varsaviensia 12, no. 1 [1974], pp. 289–302 and also in the article “Zagadnienia antropologii chrześcijańskiej” Studia Theologica Varsaviensia 9, no. 2 [1971], pp. 95–109). In his statements he points to this position rather than the representation of the full concept. Also, in Analecta Cracoviensia, we read: “Here, in this presence of other people in a particular person, we perceive reality, the ontic basis of the community. They can and should be treated as both a separate and independent person and as a real and functioning community of individuals” (p. 187). Nevertheless, it should be added that this does not absolve us from the study of what this community is as an objective, i.e. the unity of the real multiplicity of person-subjects. Just as the personal subjectivity of man is an objective reality, so too is the objective reality—in this case, the multiplicity of these entities and their community—through the unity of the common good, especially in the relationship of “we”, as we shall see in further analysis.

In this sense, we can also speak of the person-community conjugation, as Fr. L. Kuc is quoted as saying in the statements above.

Fr. M Jaworski, in his work “Człowiek a Bóg. Zagadnienie relacji znaczeniowej pomiędzy osobą ludzką i Bogiem a problem ateizmu,” in Logos i ethos. Rozprawy filozoficzne, ed. K. Kłósak (Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1971), p. 127, wrote: “The significant moments that define the human person add a reference to ‘you’.” The entire article is devoted to the human relation (“I”) to God as the unconditional “You” of man as well as the principle of the human person. Noting this position, the author wishes to add that in the context of this study he does not take up the analysis of this important relationship—it remains within inter-human relations.

This topic is dealt with particularly in connection with the analysis of Max Scheler’s ethics. See: Ocena możliwości zbudowania etyki chrześcijańskiej przy założeniach systemu Maksa Schelera (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 1959); “System etyczny Maksa Schelera jako środek do opracowania etyki chrześcijańskiej,” Polonia Sacra 6, no. 2–4 (1953–1954), pp. 143–161; “Ewangeliczna zasada naśladowania. Nauka źródeł Objawienia a system filozoficzny Maxa Schelera,” Ateneum Kapłańskie 55, no. 1 (1957), pp. 57–67.

The formation of the “I” to “you” is devoted in an analytical way to my work Uczestnictwo czy alienacja? (Participation ou aliénation?) sent to the International Phenomenology Colloquium to Friborg Switzerland (24-28 I 1975) and delivered at the invitation of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Freiburg Feb. 27, 1975. The general topic of the colloquium organized by the Société Internationale pour l’étude de Husserl et de la phénoménologie internationale Forschungsgesellschaft fur Phénoménologie was: “Soi et autrui – la crise de l’irréductible dans l’homme.” Since the text of the paper has not yet been published, the titles of the chapters are as follows: “The need to establish a starting point – ‘I’ – soi: self-determination and self-ownership”; “‘Second’ – autrui”; “System: ‘I’ – ‘other’ (soi-autrui): its potentiality and actualization,” “Participation as a task”; and “Alienation.” The titles of the papers delivered at the colloquium were as follows: Karol Wojtyła (Kraków): Participation ou aliénation; Hans Köchler (Innsbruck): Die personale Selbstbestimmung und die Dialektik; A. de Muralt (Geneva): L’acte fondé et l’aperception d’autrui; E. Maarbach (Louvain – Archives Husserl): Zum Problem der Doppel-Reduktion; Jérôme Danek (Québec): L’intersubjectivité et la monadologie chez Husserl; Ph. Secrétan (Fribourg): Soi et autrui dans la conception de la personne chez Edith Stein; S. Strasser (Nijmegen): Der Einzige und sein Anderer; Alonso Lingis (State College): Lévinas’ Critic of Heidegger on Intersubjectivity; Jan De Greef (Louvain): L’aliénation irréductible, de soi; M. Nédoncelle (Strasbourg): Altérite et causalité; C. Valenziano (Cefalù): La réciprocité des consciences; M.D. Philippe (Fribourg): L’amour de soi, obstacle ou moyen privilégié?; J.C. Piguet (Lausanne): Le langage entre soi et autrui; A.-T. Tymieniecka (Boston): Autrui et interprétation créatrice; and E.A. Montsopoulos (Athens): Plaisir et aliénation. For the texts of Card. K. Wojtyła in English see: “Participation or Alienation?” Analecta Husserliana, 6 (1977), pp. 61–73 or in Polish: “Uczestnictwo czy alienacja?” Summarium. Sprawozdania Towarzystwa Naukowego KUL, 7 (1978), pp. 7–16.

My ethical study Miłość i odpowiedzialność (Kraków: Znak, 1962) is built on this principle.

See: Gaudium et spes, no. 12: “But God did not create man as a solitary, for from the beginning ‘male and female he created them’ (Gen. 1:27). Their companionship produces the primary form of interpersonal communion (communio personarum).” Translation from: http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html (accessed October 10, 2018). 

Ibidem, no. 24: “Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, ‘that all may be one … as we are one’ (John 17:21–22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God’s sons in truth and charity.” 