Lectures on Polish Value Theory

149 Pages·2019·0.531 MB·English

by  Czesław Porębski

Lectures on Polish Value Theory
Studien Zur Österreichische
Philosophie
Gegründet von
Rudolf Haller†
Herausgegeben von
Mauro Antonelli
band 47
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ISSN 0167-4102
ISBN 978-90-04-40761-9 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-39432-2 (e- book)
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Contents
Foreword ix
Preface xi
1 Twardowski: Scientific Ethics 1
1 The School of Twardowski 1
2 Ethical Knowledge: Papers, Projects and Courses on Ethics 4
3 The Map of Scientific Ethics 5
4 Four Main Headings 7
5 Twardowski’s Own Conception: The Tasks of Scientific Ethics 11
2 Czeżowski: Ethics – an Empirically Based Discipline 14
1 Roots of Value Theory 14
2 Value Theory Follows the Philosophy of Science 14
3 Analytical Description 15
4 Analytical Description and Empirical Research 16
5 Names, Identity and Empirical Data 17
6 Three Cognitive Attitudes 18
7 Empirical Axiological Knowledge 19
8 Two Kinds of Ethics 21
9 Laws in Legal and Scientific Systems 23
10 The Logic of Goods 25
11 The Sense of Life 26
12 Brentanian in Spirit 28
3 Kotarbiński: Knowing and Doing 30
1 On Logic and Knowing What There Is 30
2 Praxiology, or Doing Properly What Is to Be Done 32
3 Why Ethics? 35
4 What Ethics? 38
4 Tatarkiewicz: The Absoluteness of the Good 41
1 Historian and Philosopher 41
2 Main Theories 42
3 Relativism Defined 42
4 Subjectivism Defined 43
5 Critique of Relativism 45
vi Contents
6 Subjectivism: For and Against 47
7 Absolutism or perseitas boni 48
8 The Relativity of Rules of Conduct 50
9 The Order of Goods 51
10 Telling Something de nouveau 53
5 Ingarden: Aesthetics and Phenomenological Value Theory 55
1 Art and Philosophy 55
2 Works of Architecture 55
3 Artistic and Aesthetic Values 59
4 Aesthetic Experience 61
5 General Theory of Works of Art 63
6 Modes of Being, Values and Culture 66
6 Elzenberg: An Unfinished System of Axiology 73
1 A Solitary Type of Man 73
2 Two Aspects of Axiology 74
3 Perfective Value; Positive and Negative Values 74
4 Instrumental, Derivative and Utilitarian Values 76
5 The Epistemology of Values 78
6 Troubles with Praxiological Principles 79
7 Value Theory and Mysticism 81
7 Ossowska: The Science of Morals 87
1 Semantics versus the “Science of Morals” 87
2 Descriptive Study of Morals 87
3 Ossowska’s Programme and Her Works 89
4 Norms, Evaluations and the Notion of Morals 90
5 Theories of Moral Norms and Evaluations 91
6 What Is the Object of Moral Evaluations? 95
7 General Questions Concerning Norms and Evaluations 98
8 The Contents of Our Moral Consciousness 98
8 Bocheński: Morality, Ethics, and Analysis 100
1 Bocheński as a Moralist and Moral Philosopher 100
2 A Personal Note 101
3 Chevalier 103
4 On Patriotism and De virtute militari 104
5 Morality, Meta- Ethics, Wisdom and Piety 107
Contents vii
6 Not to Moralize but to Analyze 109
7 Is It Worthwhile Studying Bocheński the Moral Philosopher? 110
Appendix: Ethics as an Empirical Discipline 113
Tadeusz Czeżowski
1 Primary Individual Evaluations 113
2 Ethical Principles 116
Biographical Notes 121
Bibliography 129
Index of Names 136

Foreword
The main part of Lectures on Polish Value Theory introduces the reader to value-
theoretic topics that were the subject of animated discussion in Poland in the
20th century. The fruit of that dialogue forms an important chapter of modern
Polish philosophy, a chapter written by authors who were very different from
each other in many respects.
These philosophers differed in their conceptions of philosophy, in their
methodological approaches and final conclusions – and in their Weltan-
schauung. Some of them, especially among the direct disciples of Kazimierz
Twardowski, followed analytical approaches and, like Tadeusz Czeżowski,
used the tools of logic in their work on problems of values. Roman Ingarden’s
studies in aesthetics stand as exemplary achievements of a phenomenologi-
cal approach. Maria Ossowska opted for a strictly descriptive approach to the
study of morals. Henryk Elzenberg took an intuitionistic approach all his own,
woven with subtle insights that he owed to such diverse sources as Marcus
Aurelius’s meditations, French poetry, Goethe, and Gandhi and the larger reli-
gious heritage of India.
They differed also in how they assessed the outcome of their own studies.
Tadeusz Czeżowski, Tadeusz Kotarbiński and Władysław Tatarkiewicz shared
the view of Kazimierz Twardowski, the founder of the Lvov- Warsaw School,
that the realm of values lies within the scope of the knowable, but Henryk El-
zenberg abandoned his initial idea of constructing an axiological system that
would be free of some of the flaws of G.E. Moore’s work. Despite the impres-
sive number and breadth of Roman Ingarden’s axiological and especially his
aesthetic studies, in one of his later works he shouldered the task of enumerat-
ing what we do not know about values. And while Maria Ossowska remained
steadfast in the pursuit of her descriptive approach, she continued to enter-
tain doubts about the possibility of ethical knowledge. Józef Maria Bocheński
struck a similarly skeptical note when he said that that the role of the philoso-
pher is to analyze, not to moralize.
In spite of all the differences, these authors have much in common. All
were convinced that questions of values are critically important, important
enough to make them devote a huge share of their intellectual effort to re-
flecting on them: for each of these thinkers, axiological reflection was inte-
gral to their life project. This reflection is marked by the exceptional care,
seriousness and rigor with which it was carried out. It is striking how, in their
different ways, they aimed to apprehend the facts and incorporate them into
the sort of precise formulas that could build the structure of a well-f ormed
x Foreword
argument. These common features reflect the position taken by Twardowski
and his school. That position attracted many outside of Twardowski’s school,
going on to become a part of the bonum commune of Polish philosophy in
the 20th century.
Władysław Stróżewski, President, Polish Philosophical Society