Keynote speech by Krzysztof Czyżewski on „Second Annual Leszek Kołakowski Symposium” in Vienna

Krzysztof Czyżewski

" …there is no logical passage” or: about Restoration

of the Invisible Bridge between Self and the World.[if !supportFootnotes][1][endif]

To the Memory of Leonidas Donskis

What we can learn from Leszek Kołakowski about the bond between the Self and World if there is no logical passage?

For the answer we should follow him in the "pursuit of truth as distinct from the pursuit of technically reliable knowledge".[2]. Since for the author of God Owes Us Nothing the negation of the passage does not contradict working on its construction, we will encounter him as a builder, not a crosser, of the Bridge.

The philosophy of Leszek Kołakowski, just like his philosophical  via activa  cannot boast establishing some passage across to the banks of the Shore, beyond the limes of the realm of individual consciousness. This, however, does not dominate my perception of the author of If there is no God as a bridge builder. A decisive factor is time:  past perfect whose laid bare inability paralyzes both the cynic and the nihilist, it is superseded by the  present continuous imperfect which - without prejudging anything - gives its consent to building. A decisive factor is form: the closed form claiming the right of passage easily undermined by critical philosophy, yielding to the open form, hospitable to what is unknown, unsatisfied and utopian. Finally, a decisive factor is, perhaps most importantly for the developed here thought - philosopher's persistence in the ground zero of the broken bridge. For Kołakowski it is only an actual reality from which escape is an unforgivable mistake. Knowledge becomes in this case simultaneously a moral imperative. Let us imagine life in the neighbourhood of a broken bridge. It is a situation, apart from other possible - that releases a great potential for action, otherwise it becomes impossible to tolerate. You can escape to the shore accessible to us and in this way deepen the division until the destructive extreme or turn to thought and action meant to rebuild the bridge. The third option would be accessibility of both shores, equally distanced from the subject situated between, but then we would find ourselves in the situation of a donkey placed between a stack of hay and a pail of water from the famous Buridan's sophism - equally hungry and thirsty, we would die unable to make a rational choice.


[1] [‘’…there is no logical passage.” or: the Re-enchantment of the Bridge from Self to World. What we can learn from Leszek Kołakowski about the passage between Self and World if there is no a logical one? For the answer we should follow him in the "pursuit of truth as distinct from the pursuit of technically reliable knowledge".  Since for the author of “God Owes Us Nothing” the negation of the passage is not the opposite of its construction, we will encounter him as a builder, not a crosser, of the Bridge.]

[2] L. Kołakowski, Husserl and the Search for Certitude, p.10

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Second Annual Leszek Kołakowski Symposium with participation of Krzysztof Czyżewski