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Leszek Kołakowski
Leszek Kołakowski (; ; 23 October 1927 – 17 July 2009) was a Polish philosopher and historian of ideas. He is best known for his critical analyses of Marxist thought, especially his three-volume history, '' Main Currents of Marxism'' (1976). In his later work, Kołakowski increasingly focused on religious questions. In his 1986 Jefferson Lecture, he asserted that " learn history not in order to know how to behave or how to succeed, but to know who we are".Leszek Kołakowski, "The Idolatry of Politics," reprinted in ''Modernity on Endless Trial'' (University of Chicago Press, 1990, paperback edition 1997), , , , p. 158. Due to his criticism of Marxism and of the Communist state system, Kołakowski was effectively exiled from Poland in 1968. He spent most of the remainder of his career at All Souls College, Oxford. Despite being in exile, Kołakowski was a major inspiration for the Solidarity movement that flourished in Poland in the 1980s and helped bring about the collapse o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radom
Radom is a city in east-central Poland, located approximately south of the capital, Warsaw. It is situated on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship (since 1999), having previously been the seat of a separate Radom Voivodeship (1975–1998). Radom is the fourteenth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in its province with a population of 206,946 as of 2021. For centuries, Radom was part of the Sandomierz Province of the Kingdom of Poland and the later Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Despite being part of the Masovian Voivodeship, the city historically belongs to Lesser Poland. It was a significant center of administration, having served as seat of the Crown Council which ratified the Pact of Vilnius and Radom between Lithuania and Poland in 1401. The Nihil novi and Łaski's Statute were adopted by the Sejm at Radom's Royal Castle in 1505. In 1976, it was a center of the June 1976 protests. The city is home to the biennial Radom Air Show, the largest air sho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spinoza
Baruch (de) Spinoza (born Bento de Espinosa; later as an author and a correspondent ''Benedictus de Spinoza'', anglicized to ''Benedict de Spinoza''; 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, born in Amsterdam. One of the foremost exponents of 17th-century Rationalism and one of the early and seminal thinkers of the Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism including modern conceptions of the self and the universe, he came to be considered "one of the most important philosophers—and certainly the most radical—of the early modern period." Inspired by Stoicism, Jewish Rationalism, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Descartes, and a variety of heterodox religious thinkers of his day, Spinoza became a leading philosophical figure during the Dutch Golden Age. Spinoza's given name, which means "Blessed", varies among different languages. In Hebrew, his full name is written . In most of the documents and records contemporary with Spinoza's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humanism
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humanism" has changed according to the successive intellectual movements that have identified with it. During the Italian Renaissance, ancient works inspired scholars in various Italian cities, giving rise to a movement now called Renaissance humanism. With Enlightenment, humanistic values were re-enforced by the advances in science and technology, giving confidence to humans in their exploration of the world. By the early 20th century, organizations solely dedicated to humanism flourished in Europe and the United States, and have since expanded all over the globe. In the current day, the term generally refers to a focus on human well-being and advocates for human freedom, autonomy, and progress. It views humanity as responsible for the promotio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alicja Gescinska
Alicja Anna Gescinska (Warsaw, 1981) is a Polish-Belgian philosopher. Academic career Alicja Gescinska obtained a master's degree summa cum laude in Moral Sciences at Ghent University. She became Doctor of Philosophy at the same university in 2012, having written a dissertation on the philosophy of Max Scheler and Karol Wojtyla: ''Freedom and Persons: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Meaning of Human Agency in the Thought of Max Scheler and Karol Wojtyla''. Her book ''De verovering van de vrijheid'' (The conquest of freedom) – a philosophical and personal reflection on the meaning of freedom – was very well received. It was awarded by deMens.nu as the best non-fiction book of 2010-2011, and was shortlisted for other literary prizes. In 2012 she wrote an essay on fear and freedom, which is based on the Freedom Lecture she delivered on the Dutch Liberation Day, 5 May 2012, at Felix Meritis in Amsterdam. The essay concerns the way in which resentment and hatred lead to the dec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roger Kimball
Roger Kimball (born 1953) is an American art critic and conservative social commentator. He is the editor and publisher of ''The New Criterion'' and the publisher of Encounter Books. Kimball first gained notice in the early 1990s with the publication of his book ''Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Higher Education''. He currently serves on the board of the Manhattan Institute, and as a Visitor of Ralston College, a start-up liberal arts college based in Savannah, Georgia. He is Chairman of the William F. Buckley, Jr. Program in New Haven and has also served on the Board of Visitors of St. John's College (Annapolis and Santa Fe) and the board of Transaction Publishers. On May 7, 2019, he was awarded the Bradley Prize in Washington, D.C. On September 12, 2019, he was awarded the Thomas L. Phillips Career Achievement Award from The Fund for American Studies. Early life and education Kimball was educated at Cheverus High School, a Jesuit institution in Portland, Maine, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solidarność
Solidarity ( pl, „Solidarność”, ), full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity" (, abbreviated ''NSZZ „Solidarność”'' ), is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland. Subsequently, it was the first independent trade union in a Warsaw Pact country to be recognised by the state. The union's membership peaked at 10 million in September 1981, representing one-third of the country's working-age population. Solidarity's leader Lech Wałęsa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and the union is widely recognised as having played a central role in the end of Communist rule in Poland. In the 1980s, Solidarity was a broad anti-authoritarian social movement, using methods of civil resistance to advance the causes of workers' rights and social change. Government attempts in the early 1980s to destroy the union through the imposition of martial law in Poland and the use of political repression failed. Operati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British-American author and journalist who wrote or edited over 30 books (including five essay collections) on culture, politics, and literature. Born and educated in England, Hitchens worked as a journalist with the ''New Statesman'' magazine in London in the 1970s after leaving Oxford. In the early 1980s he emigrated to the United States and wrote for ''The Nation'' and '' Vanity Fair''. Hitchens political views evolved greatly throughout his life. Originally describing himself as a democratic socialist, he was a member of various socialist organisations in his early life, including the International Socialists. Hitchens eventually no longer regarded himself as socialist, but continued to admire aspects of Marxism. He was critical of aspects of American foreign policy, including its involvement in Vietnam, Chile, and East Timor. However, he also supported the United States in the Kosovo War. After Hitchens di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
José Guilherme Merquior
José Guilherme Merquior (April 22, 1941 – January 7, 1991) was a Brazilian diplomat, academic, writer, literary critic and philosopher. Biography He was a prolific writer, and member of the Academia Brasileira de Letras (the Brazilian Academy of Letters). He had a doctorate in sociology from the London School of Economics, which was directed by Ernest Gellner. Merquior also studied under Claude Lévi-Strauss (whose ideas Merquior would largely repudiate in ''From Prague to Paris''), and took guidance from the likes of Raymond Aron, Harry Levin, and Arnaldo Momigliano. He published books written directly in French, English, Italian, and his native Portuguese. Merquior divided his published works in two segments. In one the bulk was criticism ''per se''; in the other the emphasis was the history of ideas, or more specific investigations like the highly esteemed study of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Max Weber. Two of his books, '' Foucault'' (1985), an often scathing critique of M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
JPII
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his death in April 2005, and was later canonised as Pope Saint John Paul II. He was elected pope by the second papal conclave of 1978, which was called after John Paul I, who had been elected in August to succeed Pope Paul VI, died after 33 days. Cardinal Wojtyła was elected on the third day of the conclave and adopted the name of his predecessor in tribute to him. Born in Poland, John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope since Adrian VI in the 16th century and the second-longest-serving pope after Pius IX in modern history. John Paul II attempted to improve the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, and the Eastern Orthodox Church. He maintained the church's previous positions on such matters as abortion, artificial cont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
György Lukács
György Lukács (born György Bernát Löwinger; hu, szegedi Lukács György Bernát; german: Georg Bernard Baron Lukács von Szegedin; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, critic, and aesthetician. He was one of the founders of Western Marxism, an interpretive tradition that departed from the Marxist ideological orthodoxy of the Soviet Union. He developed the theory of reification, and contributed to Marxist theory with developments of Karl Marx's theory of class consciousness. He was also a philosopher of Leninism. He ideologically developed and organised Lenin's pragmatic revolutionary practices into the formal philosophy of vanguard-party revolution. As a literary critic Lukács was especially influential due to his theoretical developments of realism and of the novel as a literary genre. In 1919, he was appointed the Hungarian Minister of Culture of the government of the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic (Mar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stanisław Brzozowski (writer)
Stanisław Leopold Brzozowski (28 June 1878 – 30 April 1911) was a Polish philosopher, writer, publicist, literary and theatre critic. Considered to be an important Polish philosopher, Brzozowski is known for his concept of the ''philosophy of labour'', rooted in Marxism. Besides Karl Marx, among his major inspirations were Georges Sorel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, Thomas Carlyle, and John Henry Newman. Brzozowski's core idea was based on the concept of a socially engaged intellectual (artist). Although he was in favour of historical materialism, he strongly argued against its deterministic interpretation. In his philosophical approaches, Brzozowski rejected all concepts that were commodifying a human being. Polish intellectuals (Czesław Miłosz, Andrzej Walicki, Leszek Kołakowski) have stressed that Brzozowski's interpretations of Marx's early writings, not widely known at the time of their formulation, largely anticipated those presented later by György Lukács ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
