The development of studies on the first- and third-person human experience which took place in the 20th century revealed the need to re-empirize Thomistic anthropology. Among the thinkers who undertook this task were Karol Wojtyła and Mieczysław Krąpiec. This re-empirization was linked with adapting the cognitive tools developed within the modern philosophy of the subject to descriptions of the first-person experience. Wojtyła assumed that the starting point of the cognition of the personal subject was the experience of performing an act, (...) in opposition to what happens within a man. Krąpiec criticized this concept and proposed basing Thomistic anthropology on the subjective experience of existence, in which the ‘I’ manifests itself through ‘my’-acts. The experience of the act, on the one hand, and the immanence and transcendence of the self in relation to ‘my’-acts, on the other hand, allowed these philosophers to build an anthropological bridge to the Thomistic system. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to outline the concept of transcendentalising reduction and to demonstrate what role it plays in Thomistic metaphysics. An adaptive interpretation has been used in the analyses by applying phenomenological thinking based on epoche reduction to Thomistic metaphysics. It was used to present the structure of transcendentalising reduction, which consists of several different epoché. Consistently applied, this reduction should lead to a neutralised concept of being as a subject of metaphysics expressed in the formula “being (...) as being”. In conclusion, we note that the proposed interpretation opens the door to further research in which phenomenology could be used in metaphysical studies to a greater extent than has been the case to date. (shrink)

The German philosopher Robert Spaemann proposed a complex but incomplete concept of philosophy. It has features of a classical approach, but it is difficult to define what is classical in it. Its comparison to the contemporary version of classical philosophy developed by the Lublin School of Philosophy shows that Spaemann may be considered as a representative of a classical, though not metaphysical, manner of philosophizing. Both in philosophy, systematically perceived as a type of cognition, and history, perceived as a type (...) of discourse, classical influences can be observed in terms of the concept of philosophy, its object, purpose, and method. Despite the tension between philosophy as the cognition and philosophy as the discourse, in his concept these two aspects cannot be reduced one to another and cannot be separate from each other. The awareness that philosophy is an endless and controversial discourse on ultimate problems does not relieve philosophers from their efforts to pursue the truth about reality. And this is how Spaemann looks at his own philosophising. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas understands providence as the reason of directing things to ends, and as the execution of that directing, i.e. governance. Thus, providence is one of the fundamental attributes of the person that reveals the person's perfection and dignity. Providence consists in a free and reasonable directing of oneself and the reality subject to oneself in order to actualize potentialities of oneself and of other beings in the context of the ultimate goal of existence. Human providence joins the providence of (...) the Absolute with regard to the world. In spite of its deficiencies human providence reveals the essential dignity of the human person. (shrink)

The article discusses the sources of philosophical inspirations of Andrzej Maryniarczyk, one of the most outstanding representatives of the third generation of the Lublin Philosophical School. This school draws on the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, in which metaphysics plays a central role. Thus, it is not surprising that it was the thought of Aristotle and Aquinas that became Maryniarczyk’s main research subject and a source of inspiration. The author of Metoda metafizyki realistycznej [The Method of Realistic Metaphysics] was also interested in the (...) thought of Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec and Karol Wojtyła, contemporary representatives of the Thomistic tradition, and, at the same time, prominent representatives of the Lublin Philosophical School. From his predecessors, Maryniarczyk learned what philosophy is, what its subject is, and how it should be practiced. He treated these thinkers as his guides in realistic philosophizing, drawing from them inspiration for being a philosopher in the twenty-first century by taking a particular attitude towards reality and ongoing discourse. (shrink)