Janusz Kuczyński

METAPHILOSOPHY
- WISDOM OF SCIENCE, ART, AND LIFE

1. How to survive in the chaos of the contemporary world?
2. In ideological and moral emptiness?
3. Philosophical correctness in place of metaphilosophical truth and certainty;
4. Universal validity; Intellectual masochism and self-destruction of philosophy - the turn to universalism as metaphilosophy and metatheory;
5. Seeking after certainty and meaning - and therefore universalism;
6. Universal criteria for the validity of knowledge and universal relativism;
7. Towards a definition of universal values and epistemological needs;
8. The assertion and overcoming of anti-philosophy: the hope of meaning;
9.Types of universalism;
10. The intricate paths to universalism - even in the subtext of "Debating the State of Philosophy";
11. Kairos: dialogue and universalism

 A memorable discussion took place in the Polish Academy of Sciences' Institute of Philosophy and Sociology on May 8-9, 1995 entitled "Debating the State of Philosophy".

Habermas and Rorty took part in it as the main participants and Leszek Kołakowski added his own viewpoint in print (a few days before leaving for Warsaw he had had an accident in Oxford). The late lamented Ernest Gellner, that splendid person and thinker, also spoke during the debate. He was to die six months later. I myself am writing these remarks in the hospital where I saw Ernest for the last time when he visited me during my serious illness. Well-known Polish philosophers engaged in the discussion: Józef Niżnik, Andrzej Grzegorczyk, (a member of the International Institute of Philosophy), Władysław Krajewski, Stefan Morawski, Marek J. Siemek, and Andrzej Walicki. Among those attending the discussion were also Leszek Kuźnicki (a biologist) and two philosophers from abroad: Désirée Park (Concordia University) and John T. Sanders (Rochester Institute of Technology).[1]....[click here to read more]