Leszek Kołakowski
Leszek Kołakowski | |
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21st-century philosophy | |
Region | Western philosophy
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School |
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Institutions | University of Warsaw |
Doctoral students | |
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Notable ideas |
Leszek Kołakowski (
Due to his
.Life and career
Early life and education
Kołakowski was born in
In his youth, Kołakowski became a
He came to the conclusion that the totalitarian cruelty of Stalinism was not an aberration but a logical end-product of Marxism, whose genealogy he examined in his monumental Main Currents of Marxism, his major work, published in 1976 to 1978.[12]
Career
Kołakowski became increasingly fascinated by the contribution that theological assumptions make to
Kołakowski defended the role which
In 1965, Kołakowski, Maria Ossowska and Tadeusz Kotarbiński drew up a report on the meaning of the concept of message, which was used by the defence in the trial of Jacek Kuroń and Karol Modzelewski who were charged by the communist authorities with "propagating false information" in their Open Letter to the Party.[15]
In 1968, Kołakowski became a visiting professor in the Department of Philosophy at McGill University in Montreal and in 1969 he moved to the University of California, Berkeley.[16] In 1970, he became a senior research fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He remained mostly at Oxford, but he spent part of 1974 at Yale University, and from 1981 to 1994, he was a part-time professor at the Committee on Social Thought and in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago.[17]
Although the Polish Communist authorities officially banned his works in Poland, underground copies of them influenced the opinions of the Polish intellectual opposition.
Kołakowski maintained throughout his life and career a view of Marxism that was distinct from that of existing political regimes, and he relentlessly disputed these differences and defended his own interpretation of Marxism. In a famous article entitled "What is Left of Socialism", he wrote
The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia had nothing to do with Marxian prophesies. Its driving force was not a conflict between the industrial working class and capital, but rather was carried out under slogans that had no socialist, let alone Marxist, content: Peace and land for peasants. There is no need to mention that these slogans were to be subsequently turned into their opposite. What in the twentieth century perhaps comes closest to the working class revolution were the events in Poland of 1980-81: the revolutionary movement of industrial workers (very strongly supported by the intelligentsia) against the exploiters, that is to say, the state. And this solitary example of a working class revolution (if even this may be counted) was directed against a socialist state, and carried out under the sign of the cross, with the blessing of the Pope.[23]
Reception in Poland
In Poland, Kołakowski is regarded as a philosopher and
Death
Kołakowski died from multiple organ failure on 17 July 2009, aged 81, at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, England.[28][29] In an obituary, philosopher Roger Scruton wrote that Kołakowski was a "thinker for our time" and that, regarding Kołakowski's debates with intellectual opponents, "even if ... nothing remained of the subversive orthodoxies, nobody felt damaged in their ego or defeated in their life's project, by arguments which from any other source would have inspired the greatest indignation".[30]
Awards
In 1986, the National Endowment for the Humanities selected Kołakowski for the Jefferson Lecture. Kołakowski's lecture "The Idolatry of Politics",[31] was reprinted in his collection of essays Modernity on Endless Trial.[32]
In 2003, the Library of Congress named Kołakowski the first winner of the $1 million John W. Kluge Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Humanities.[33][34][26] When announcing the inaugural laureate of the prize, James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress, emphasized not only Kolakowski’s scholarship but also his "demonstrable importance to major political events in his own time," adding that “his voice was fundamental for the fate of Poland, and influential in Europe as a whole."[26]
His other awards include the following:
- Jurzykowski Prize (1969)[35]
- Peace Prize of the German Book Trade(1977)
- Veillon Foundation European Prize for the Essay (1980)
- Erasmus Prize (1983)
- MacArthur Fellowship(1983)
- Jefferson Lecture for the National Endowment for the Humanities (1986)
- Award of the Polish Pen Club(1988)
- University of Chicago Press, Gordon J. Laing Award (1991)
- Prix Alexis de Tocqueville (1994)[36]
- Honorary degree of the University of Gdańsk (1997)[37]
- Order of the White Eagle (1997)[38][39]
- Honorary degree of the University of Wrocław (2002)
- Kluge Prize of the Library of Congress (2003)[40]
- St George Medal (2006)
- Honorary degree of the Central European University (2006)[41]
- Jerusalem Prize (2007)[42]
- Democracy Service Medal (2009)
Bibliography
- Klucz niebieski, albo opowieści budujące z historii świętej zebrane ku pouczeniu i przestrodze (The Key to Heaven), 1957
- Jednostka i nieskończoność. Wolność i antynomie wolności w filozofii Spinozy (The Individual and the Infinite: Freedom and Antinomies of Freedom in Spinoza's Philosophy), 1958
- 13 bajek z królestwa Lailonii dla dużych i małych (Tales from the Kingdom of Lailonia and the Key to Heaven), 1963. English edition: Hardcover: University of Chicago Press (October 1989). ISBN 978-0-226-45039-1.
- Rozmowy z diabłem (US title: Conversations with the Devil / UK title: Talk of the Devil; reissued with The Key to Heaven under the title The Devil and Scripture, 1973), 1965
- Świadomość religijna i więź kościelna, 1965
- Od Hume'a do Koła Wiedeńskiego (the 1st edition:The Alienation of Reason, translated by Norbert Guterman, 1966/ later as Positivist Philosophy from Hume to the Vienna Circle),
- Kultura i fetysze (Toward a Marxist Humanism, translated by Jane Zielonko Peel, and Marxism and Beyond), 1967
- A Leszek Kołakowski Reader, 1971
- Positivist Philosophy, 1971
- TriQuartely 22, 1971
- Obecność mitu (The Presence of Myth), 1972. English edition: Paperback: University of Chicago Press (January 1989). ISBN 978-0-226-45041-4.
- ed. The Socialist Idea: A Reappraisal, 1974 (with Stuart Hampshire)
- Husserl and the Search for Certitude, 1975
- Główne nurty marksizmu. First published in Polish (3 volumes) as "Główne nurty marksizmu" (Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1976) and in English (3 volumes) as "ISBN 978-0393060546.
- Czy diabeł może być zbawiony i 27 innych kazań, 1982
- Religion: If There Is No God, 1982
- Bergson, 1985
- Le Village introuvable, 1986
- Metaphysical Horror, 1988. Revised edition: Paperback: University of Chicago Press (July 2001). ISBN 978-0-226-45055-1.
- Pochwała niekonsekwencji, 1989 (ed. by Zbigniew Menzel)
- Cywilizacja na ławie oskarżonych, 1990 (ed. by Paweł Kłoczowski)
- Modernity on Endless Trial, 1990. Paperback: University of Chicago Press (June 1997). ISBN 978-0-226-45045-2.
- God Owes Us Nothing: A Brief Remark on Pascal's Religion and on the Spirit of Jansenism, 1995. Paperback: University of Chicago Press (May 1998). ISBN 978-0-226-45051-3.
- Freedom, Fame, Lying, and Betrayal: Essays on Everyday Life, 1999
- The Two Eyes of Spinoza and Other Essays on Philosophers, 2004
- My Correct Views on Everything, 2005
- Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?, 2007
- Is God Happy?: Selected Essays, 2012
- Jezus ośmieszony. Esej apologetyczny i sceptyczny, 2014
See also
- Agnieszka Kołakowska, his daughter
- Zygmunt Bauman
- Adam Schaff
- History of philosophy in Poland
- List of Polish people – philosophy
- Poles in the United Kingdom
References
- ISBN 978-0-226-45046-9, p. 158.
- ^ Roger Kimball, Leszek Kołakowski and the Anatomy of Totalitarianism. The New Criterion, June 2005
- ^ a b Jason Steinhauer (2015). "'The Awakener of Human Hopes': Leszek Kolakowski", John W. Kluge Center at Library of Congress, September 18, 2015; accessed 01 December 2017
- ^ "Philosopher Awarded Library's New Kluge Prize". Washington Post. 11 May 2003.
- ^ "Leszek Kolakowski: Polish-born philosopher and writer who produced". Independent.co.uk. 29 July 2009. Archived from the original on 14 June 2022. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
- ^ George Gömöri (29 July 2009). "Leszek Kolakowski: Polish-born philosopher and writer who produced seminal critical analyses on Marxism and religion". independent.co.uk. Archived from the original on 14 April 2016. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
- ^ "Pięć lat temu zmarł Leszek Kołakowski". 21 July 2009.
- ^ Andrzej Friszke and Tadeusz Koczanowicz (23 April 2018). "Leszek Kołakowski's political path". eurozine.com. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
- ^ "Leszek Kolakowski". Telegraph.co.uk. 20 July 2009. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
- TIME Magazine, 14 October 1957
- ^ Clive James (2007) Cultural Amnesia, p. 353
- ^ Gareth Jones (17 July 2009) "Polish philosopher and author Kołakowski dead at 81". Reuters
- ISBN 9780393329438.
- ASIN B01JXSH3HM., p.16
- ^ Roman Graczyk (19 April 2018). ""List otwarty do Partii" Kuronia i Modzelewskiego". interia.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 22 May 2023.
- ^ "Leszek Kołakowski (1927-2009)" (in Polish). 15 February 2021. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
- ^ "Leszek Kołakowski". press.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
- ^ Leszek Kolakowski: Scholar and Activist The Long Career of the Kluge Prize Winner, Library of Congress Information Bulletin, December 2003.
- ^ Leszek Kołakowski (1971): Hope and Hopelessness. In: Survey, vol. 17, no. 3 (80)
- ^ Kołakowski : In Stalin's Countries: Theses on Hope and Despair (1971). osaarchivum.org
- ^ "Leszek Kolakowski, renowned philosopher, 1927-2009". news.uchicago.edu. 21 July 2009. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
- JSTOR 25779595. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
- ^ "What Is Left of Socialism by Leszek Kolakowski | Articles | First Things". October 2002.
- New York Review of Books.
- New York Times.
- ^ a b c Nicholas Kulish (20 July 2009). "Leszek Kolakowski, Polish Philosopher, Dies at 81". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 May 2023.
- ^ Michał Wieczorek (1 February 2019). "10 Polish Philosophers Who Changed the Way We Think". culture.pl. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/101919. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ "Leszek Kolakowski". Encyclopædia Britannica. 19 October 2023.
- ^ Scruton, Roger. "Leszek Kolakowski: thinker for our time". opendemocracy.net. Open Democracy. Retrieved 27 February 2015.
- ^ Jefferson Lecturers. neh.gov
- ISBN 0-226-45045-7.
- ^ "Library of Congress Announces Winner of First John W. Kluge Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Humanities and Social Sciences". Loc.gov. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
- ^ Leszek Kołakowski, "What the Past is For" (speech given on 5 November 2003, on the occasion of the awarding of the Kluge Prize to Kołakowski).
- ^ "Leszek Kołakowski". sppwarszawa.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 22 May 2023.
- ^ "Leszek Kołakowski". sppwarszawa.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 22 May 2023.
- ^ "Doktorzy Honorowi Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego". Retrieved 7 August 2019.
- ^ "M.P. 1998 nr 6 poz. 109". isap.sejm.gov.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 22 May 2023.
- ^ "Leszek Kołakowski. Portret z nosorożcem". teatrkubus.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 22 May 2023.
- ^ "John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity (The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress)". Loc.gov. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
- ^ "Leszek Kołakowski". polinst.hu. Archived from the original on 12 February 2018. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
- ^ Simon Williams (23 January 2007). "Polish writer on individual freedom to be awarded Jerusalem Prize". jpost.com. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
Further reading
- ISBN 8472400530.
External links
- "Leszek Kołakowski". Information Processing Centredatabase (in Polish).
- Leszek Kołakowski – Daily Telegraph obituary
- Polish Philosophy Page: Bibliography at the Wayback Machine (archived 10 January 2008)
- Kołakowski, Leszek (1974). "My correct views on everything: A rejoinder to Edward Thompson's 'Open letter to Leszek Kołakowski'". Socialist Register. 11.
- The Alienation of Reason (Extract)
- The Death of Utopia Reconsidered
- The Complete and Brief Metaphysics
- Judt, Tony. "Goodbye to All That?" in The New York Review of Books, Vol. 53, No. 14, 21 September 2006 (review-essay on Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, the Golden Age, the Breakdown by Leszek Kołakowski, translated from the Polish by P.S. Falla. Norton, 2005, ISBN 2-213-62491-7)
- Kołakowski : In Stalin's Countries: Theses on Hope and Despair (1971)
- 1 April 1999, BBC Radio program In Our Time
- Appearances on C-SPAN