Wojtyła Studies

The Person and the Challenges. The Journal of Theology, Education, Canon Law and Social Studies Inspired by Pope John Paul II

Resumen: Este artículo considera el problema de la idea de la cultura humana tal como se desarrolla en el pensamiento de Karol Wojtyła. Procede a través de los problemas de la 'experiencia' y de lo 'humanum'. Al considerar la constitución de nuestras ideas de una manera relevante para la constitución de la cultura en el mundo, Wojtyła se basa en las filosofías de la conciencia y las filosofías del ser con el fin de situar estas dos formas de constitución, en su dependencia óntica y praxeológica, de la persona humana. Además, el artículo pretende servir como una introducción a los aspectos menos investigados de la filosofía de Karol Wojtyła y nos anima a considerar si el método wojtyliano de investigación y análisis podría dar lugar a una escuela de filosofía. Abstract: This article considers the problem of the idea of human culture as it develops in the thought of Karol Wojtyła. It proceeds through the problems of " experience " and the " humanum ". In order to consider the constitution of our ideas in a manner relevant to the constitution of culture in the world, Wojtyła draws on the philosophies of consciousness and the philosophies of being to place these two forms of constitution in their ontic and praxeological dependency on the human person. In addition, the article seeks to serve as an introduction to less investigated aspects of the philosophy of Karol Wojtyła and encourages us to consider whether the Wojtyłian method of investigation and analysis could give rise to a school of philosophy.

Logos i Ethos, 2021

The article deals with the problem of the importance of Karol Wojtyła’s philosophy. He is shown as a thinker interested in the achievements of many philosophers throughout history, like Aristotle, St. Augustin, Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant or Max Scheler. However, he is also presented as someone who undertook his own way of philosophizing focused on the human person. Therefore the article underlines Wojtyła’s dialogue with other philosophers at the time when he was developing his own philosophical standpoint. Moreover, his philosophy is shown as a discipline associated with real problems rather than with meta-philosophical ones. The article also discusses Wojtyła’s philosophy of the human person and how it can deal with anti-personalist tendencies in contemporary philosophy. Finally, the author considers some difficulties associated with the philosophy of Wojtyła and how it should be developed in the future.

Jacek Woroniecki, 2019

Jacek Adam Woroniecki – a Polish priest, a Dominican, theologian, pedagogue, philosopher, Scholastic, ethicist and moralist. He was born on 21 December 1878 in Lublin and died on 18 May 1949 in Krakow. In 1892 he started attending the 4th Junior High School and Secondary School for Boys in Warsaw. Then he studied natural science, as well as theology and philosophy in the Swiss Fribourg. After obtaining the bachelor’s degree in theology, he joined the Theological Seminary in Lublin. In 1909 he defended his doctoral thesis on theology at the University of Fribourg, and then he joined the Dominican order, fulfilling the novitiate in San Domenico di Fiesole near Florence. In 1911, in Dusseldorf, he took perpetual vows. In 1914 he started giving lectures on ethics at the Dominican monastery in Krakow. In 1919 he was given the post of the professor of moral theology and ethics at the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL). In 1922-1924 he performed the function of the rector of KUL, and in 1928 he became a vice-rector of that university. In 1929 he became the head of the chair of moral theology of Angelicum in Rome, and a year later he obtained the highest scientific degree in the Dominican order – the Master of Saint Theology. In 1932 he founded the Congregation of the Dominican Missionary Sisters of Jesus and Mary. From 1933 he was the rector of the Dominican Philosophical and Theological Study in Lviv, where he taught moral theology, patrology and the history of the Church. In 1937–1939 he taught at the General Study in Warsaw, where he also worked as the editor of the magazine entitled “Szkoła Chrystusowa” [Christ’s School]. When the Second World War broke out, he was in Krakow and he remained there until his death. Due to his worsening health, he focused on writing books on philosophy, paying special attention to ethics, pedagogy and the history of the Church. Rev. Jacek Adam Woroniecki OP was buried in Krakow, at the Rakowicki cemetery, and in 1960 his remains were moved to St. Hyacinth’s Church in Warsaw. The most important books of Rev. Jacek Woroniecki include: “Katolicka etyka wychowawcza” [The Catholic Educational Ethics] (vol. I–III); “Katolickość tomizmu” [The Catholicity of Thomism]; “Św. Jacek Odrowąż i wprowadzenie zakonu kaznodziejskiego do Polski” [St. Hyacinth Odrowaz and Bringing the Order of Preachers to Poland]; “Pełnia modlitwy” [The Fullness of Prayer]; “Tajemnica Miłosierdzia Bożego” [The Mystery of the Divine Mercy]; “Królewskie kapłaństwo” [The Royal Priesthood]; “Około kultu mowy ojczystej” [On the Cult of Homeland Language]; “U podstaw kultury katolickiej” [The Basics of the Catholic Culture]; “Umiejętność rządzenia i rozkazywania” [The Ability to Rule and Command]. The thought of Woroniecki was strongly influenced by the person and texts of St. Thomas Aquinas whose ideas are reflected in almost all of his writings. Because of the universal nature and the social (team) way of practising Thomism, Woroniecki treated it as a complete system which is a synthesis of the whole heritage of human thought. At the same time, he emphasized that this system is cognitively open to what is true in any other manner of philosophising. In ethics he emphasized the role of the aim of human action, i.e. God, which is transcendent as compared to social conditions. He also believed that morality is an area related to education. In his opinion, the key to moral shaping of the man, i.e. encouraging him to acquire constant abilities (virtues) to do good, is the process of self-education focused on the integration of various levels of the man’s personal life: the intellectual, volitive and emotional level. Also, Woroniecki’s philosophical interests concentrated around social philosophy, especially the issues of justice, ruling, state and nation.

Logos i Ethos, 2023

The purpose of the present article is to present selected differences between two versions of the endings of Karol Wojtyła’s postdoctoral dissertation “Ocena możliwości zbudowania etyki chrześcijańskiej przy założeniach systemu Maksa Schelera”. The endings are available in the archival materials deposited in the Archives of the Metropolitan Curia in Krakow. On the basis of the differences indicated, the author defends the thesis that in the later version of the ending Wojtyła softened and nuanced his attitude to Max Scheler’s philosophy as well as to phenomenology as a research method. The article also takes up clues pointing to a change in philosophical attitude that took place in Karol Wojtyła’s philosophy in the 1950s. This change shifts from a strictly metaphysical attitude — based on Thomistic metaphysics — to a strictly anthropological attitude. In the anthropological attitude, Wojtyła finds much greater application capabilities for the phenomenological method, but ultimately the results obtained through it depend on their compatibility with the metaphysical background of his philosophy.

The Person and the Challenges, 2023

The aim of this paper is to present archival discoveries made, among others, by the author in the Archives of the Metropolitan Curia in Cracow. The discoveries concern the manuscript of Karol Wojtyła, and are connected to his work on the postdoctoral thesis. This discovery was also presented in the context of its possible influence on the study of Wojtyła's philosophy, based on Etienne Gilson's conception of the method of studying the history of philosophy (the necessity of considering the whole of thought in the context of its individual elements, the context of impersonal necessity, etc.).

2021

The article is devoted to the philosophical and theological thought of Karol Wojtyla, i.e., John Paul II, who in his considerations gave a lot of attention to European issues, including the spiritual heritage of Europe, to European Christianity in its two varieties, i.e., Latin and Byzantine, and to the relationship between European unity and the pluralism of national cultures. We discover the proper sense of Wojtyla’s European thought by referring to his inspiration with the theology of spirituality, which was the future Pope’s first research experience. His vision of Europe is based on personalistic philosophy, thanks to which these considerations take a universal form. The key to understanding universalism is personalistic hermeneutics, owing to which we perceive the source of universality in man understood as a person. However, Wojtyla’s universalism has two faces. It is universalism in the literal sense, thanks to the personalistic perspective. In the axiological layer it also ...

Forum Philosophicum, 1970

Jubilees induce one to reflect, to look back. It is a good opportunity to make some summaries, one ponders over the achievements of the past. It is also a good moment to express one's appreciation and gratitude. Such an expression of appreciation and a form of gratitude is the book Philosophy Leaning Towards Man, dedicated to Rev. Stanisław Kowalczyk, a professor of philosophy on the occasion of forty years of his scientific work at the Catholic University of Lublin and the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination. This joint publication, dedicated to Prof. Kowalczyk and edited by Edward Balawajder, Arkadiusz Jabłoński and Jan Szymczyk, comprises numerous studies by his associates, colleagues and students. The whole work is thematically organized into three parts. The first part contains texts that raise anthropological issues, the second - social issues, and the third - issues concentrated around the relation between God and religion. This organization perfectly reflects the spec...

Studia Gilsoniana, 2021

The author seeks to answer the question of whether Karol Wojtyła was a Thomist or a phenomenologist. He lists four possible answers: 1) Wojtyła was a Thomist; 2) Wojtyła was a phenomenologist; 3) Wojtyła was both a Thomist and a phenomenologist, meaning one with an inclination toward both Thomism and phenomenology; and 4) Wojtyła was none of them, meaning one who sought to go beyond both Thomism and phenomenology. In order to determine which of these responses is most adequate, the author not only analyzes Wojtyła’s most important works, but also takes into account their publishers and dates of publication. He concludes that 1) Wojtyła was a philosopher of being, who was able to make use of the philosophy of Aristotle and of St. Thomas Aquinas along with phenomenological method, and 2) his philosophy contributed an original approach that bore fruit in a deeper understanding of man as a person.