The paper is the first of three publications which will address the problem of existential concerns explored from the perspective of seniors. The common feature of these papers is the attempt to investigate this phenomenon be means of qualitative research conducted among seniors. We believe that seniors in their late adulthood or old age are more deeply aware of the approaching death, what motivates them to reflect on the fragile and finite nature of human existence and the meaning of their lives. As they face challenging thoughts and sense that these thoughts focus on the most fundamental existential problem, they try to respond to it and formulate individual solutions. This is very interesting for researchers because the reality studied is in this case recognized as it is being formed, in statu nascendi. The dynamics of this process is connected with the way seniors experience themselves as they cope with their existential concerns on daily basis. With every new experience, they may arrive at different conclusions or confirm that their present way of thinking and evaluating life is the right one. The purpose of presenting diverse research reflections in the papers is not to verify again an again the results obtained previously in other samples but rather to grasp the complex picture which shows the ways seniors approach life and death, understand their existential concerns and their importance in life as well as the mechanisms they use to buffer existential fear in different circumstances. The publications present different research strategies including analyses of materials obtained as short written statements, unstructured interviews and survey questionnaires. As part of theoretical introduction to the research problem, this papers presents reflections on the main aspects of finiteness of human existence, set in the interdisciplinary scientific discourse. A special emphasis in the discussion is put on the self-reflective context of confrontation with the anticipated, inevitable death in the light of the essence of human existence recognized as an autotelic value. The research section focuses on exploring how do seniors approach the phenomenon of transience of life and inevitability of death. The research material was obtained in the form of short statements written by seniors as answers to open ended questions. As a result of the analysis, a quite complex catalogue was created of responses of seniors to the inevitability of death - from acceptance of one’s own death to suppression of the death-related thoughts. The analysis also resulted in the typology of five approaches towards death, presented by the seniors. The names of these categories are, in our opinion, symbolic and include: stoic, worldview-based, existential, anxiety-based and avoidance approach.
The Digital Revolution is transforming the way in which we interact with one an-other and relate to experience. The superabundance and superfluity of the virtual world, the fleeting moment and instantaneous pleasure it provides, begin to prevail as a cultural value and determine an attitude of detachment and indifference that extends to all as-pects of our life. For Søren Kierkegaard this is a “demoniacal temptation” that leads to a life devoid of spiritual depth. In the midst of the undeniable bounties of technology, reflection on this paradoxical nature of the technological in our lives becomes an urgent task.
Rev. Franciszek Sawicki (1877-1952), undoubtedly the most prominent member among the Pelplin scholars, chose as a one of the topics of his writings the problem of the suffering, its meaning and importance for the human existence. Sawicki, as he strives to classify various instances of the evil and its manifestations, puts a question about what might be the meaning of the suffering in the context of the faith. The mundane experience of happiness binds us with this world. The suffering and death, on the other hand, directs the human being towards the supreme good and the true end of our lives which is God himself. As an outcome of the enquiry made by this sage of Pelplin we obtain a very interesting interpretation of the mystery of suffering which has an existentially optimistic dimension.
Autor artykułu podejmuje refleksję nad przyszłością religii chrześcijańskiej. Charakteryzować się ona będzie zanikiem, przynajmniej częściowym, form dotychczasowych i pojawieniem się jej nowych wersji. Celem prowadzonych analiz, które składają się z dwóch zasadniczych części, jest ukazanie sytuacji religii chrześcijańskiej we współczesnej kulturze europejskiej (znaczonej niechęcią wobec niej, odzieraniem jej z nadprzyrodzoności, funkcjonalnym traktowaniem i odmawianiem jej prawa do posiadania prawdy). Autor podkreśla zatem, że religia przetrwa ponieważ jest nieodzownym elementem struktury bytu ludzkiego i odpowiedzią na egzystencjalne problemy człowieka. Ponadto zwraca uwagę na cztery zasadnicze postacie chrześcijaństwa przyszłości (redukcja do etyki, panteizująca wersja, przekształcenie w duchowość oraz życie w diasporze).
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The author of the article reflects on the future of Christianity. Its features will include the disappearance, at least partially, of the existing forms and the appearance of its new versions. The purpose of the analyses, which consist of two main parts, is to show, above all, the situation of Christianity in contemporary European culture – marked by an aversion to it, depriving it of its supernaturality, treating it functionally and denying it the right to be in possession of the truth. It is emphasized that religion will survive by being an inalienable element of the structure of human beings and a response to human existential problems, and attention will be paid to the four basic forms of future Christianity (reduction to ethics, pantheistic versions, transformation into spirituality and life in diaspora).
In framing a question about meaning of man, respectively human history, Patočka uses a historical-philosophical aspect as well as a phenomenological aspect. By tracking the genesis of the concept of eternity from Kant to the 20th century he concludes, that human meaning cannot be derived from moral postulates which exceed finitness of man. By deleting the concept of eternity Patočka concludes, that the question of meaning cannot be bound by human targets, because filled purpose is already objectified, existing, without the horizon of your being and in this its takes the form of a relative meaning. The meaning, according to Patočka is phenomenologically bound to being, which is non-objective, implying that the meaning is problematic, unreal, yet constantly perpetuated. This attitude has served Patočka to the criticism of nihilism and in it especially to the unacceptability of active nihilism, the concept which Nietzsche introduced into the philosophy. Patočka transferred a critique of Nietzsche´s understanding of realized meaning in terms of superman by rejection of his idea of will to power (he understood it in the definition of gross and ruthless animal life, namely in the form of the highest being) and the doubtful idea of eternal return. Patočka with his attitude to Nietzsche only echoed the opinion presented by Heidegger, which called Nietzsche the consummator of modern subjectivity.In terms of the present (Kouba) it shows, that phenomenology will profit more if it converts both Nietzsche´s thoughts to its own area and use them in the analysis of situational meaning that is constantly (by contradiction) bound to the horizon of possibility of the situation without a sense – that is in meaningful situation suppressed, not realized, but its validity and consistency with the horizon of meaning does not lose. In this view, it appears that Nietzsche´s understanding of the meaning is also problematic, but this problematic natureis not bound to absolute meaning.
Within the philosophical anthropology of Helmuth Plessner the concept of the boundary plays a prominent role. As a basic idea to understand the existence of living organisms the key concept of the boundary allows to conceive the specifics of human extistence in the term of the eccentric positionality as a fundamental constitution of man. The article tries to reconstruct the genesis and the systematic content of the concept of the boundary and to outline the consequences for Plessner’s social philosophy.
Aim. In his Kierkegaardian studies Jean Wahl states that there is a fundamental convergence between Plato and Søren Kierkegaard focused on the notions of identity and difference. Wahl suggests a sort of transposition of platonic metaphysics into the sphere of personal subjectivity. This paper intends to explain this passage from the same to the other from Plato to Kierkegaard. Concept. The article explains the passage from the same to the other from Plato to Kierkegaard. In both authors, the categories of being or not being, identity and difference, unity and multiplicity, becoming and rest explain the dynamic nature of the real. Results and conclusion. In both authors, the categories mensioned above explain the dynamic nature of the real. But while Plato applies these categories to the inteligibile word, Kierkegaard applies them to individual freedom, which supports reality as a whole. Cognitive value. Both searches lead to a single speculative answer and culminate in the same metaphysical categorisation, which applies analogously to everything real. Indeed, being and non-being, identity and difference, oneness and otherness, rest and becoming, explain the dialectic, intensive and relational dynamism of entia. At the same time, they essentially determine the power of human existence, infinitely possible and forever depending on the absolute.
The paper presents reflections on human existence and the nature of human being. The author of the paper presents his own standpoint and compares it with other philosophical and religious conceptions of the human being, inter alia those formed in Christianity, Marxism and Cartesianism. The primary concern of the essay is the existential-anthropological significance of human being’s creativity.
Work is an aspect of rational, planned and active human behavior in the world, subject to regulation moral, realized in human action. People mani-fested in needs, resulting in its development. Differentiated approach to human work is its multidimensionality and multifaceted, and clarify one universal define it appears to be extremely difficult due to the incessant changes in the nature and content.
African literature embodies a profound ethnographic or ethno-philosophical diverse conceptions and analysis of history and existence of man. Although it has in no little way, been considered synonymously with the teleological movement of time hence the questions ‘From where is man?’ ‘what is life?’ ‘why death?’ and ‘to where does man go’ are underlying imperatives of human existence and this to a large extent, constitutes eschatology. But what is eschatology and to what extent does it envelope a broad understanding of human existence? How much does this structures human attitude to life itself? Does this qualify for a people’s philosophy? In this study we shall examine human existence in Esan eschatology especially as it constitute a broad ideological frame work to an understanding to fundamental issues that constitute being and beings and as a peoples philosophy to certain global demands. The researcher adopts a critical, hermeneutic and phenomenological method in crystallizing the wealth or quintessence and relevance of the Esan eschatological analysis of human existence in African literature and philosophy and concludes with the affirmation that African ethnography and philosophy affirms that human existence cuts across three transcendental stages in a teleological movement through fundamental or existential realities which brings his will, choice and responsibility to play.
Philosophical trends referring to the concept of person are characterized by a certain dissonance. The presented article makes an attempt at answering the question about the reality of person. The personal perspective adopted by the author, is a kind of novelty, thus showing that it is impossible to make a specific reflection on the existence of man or his nature without proper reflection on the category of person. This analysis, presented in the spirit of personalism, puts the person in the center, showing its wealth and antinomies. Thus, it attempts to indicate the basic personalist categories such as dignity, freedom, sanctity, etc. Being a person means that we ought to treat everyone as having their unconditional, transcendental value.
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Istnieje pewien dysonans w nurtach filozoficznych odnoszących się do pojęcia osoby. W prezentowanym artykule podjęto próbę odpowiedzi na pytanie o realność osoby. Osobowa perspektywa podjęta przez autora jest swoistym novum i tym samym unaocznia, iż bez właściwego namysłu nad kategorią osoby nie można podejmować konkretnej refleksji nad egzystencją człowieka, jego natury. Analiza przedstawiona w duchu personalizmu stawia osobę w centrum, ukazując jej bogactwo, antynomie. Tym samym podjęto próbę wskazania podstawowych kategorii personalistycznych takich jak godność, wolność, świętość etc.
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