From the Rule of Truth to Self-Governance. The Personalistic Foundations of Democracy according to Tadeusz Styczeń
From the Rule of Truth to Self-Governance. The Personalistic Foundations of Democracy according to Tadeusz Styczeń

Summary/Abstract: The central ideas that organize the thought of Tadeusz Styczeń are the person and its dignity, as well as the experience of truth. The guiding principle of ethical personalism that he formulates, “The person of others should be affirmed as one’s own, that is, for their own sake.” does not stop at the level of individualistic ethics, but is translated into some further issues of social ethics. The author of the article attempts to present and analyze the assumptions which, according to Tadeusz Styczeń, constitute the anthropological and ethical basis of the order of a democratic state. If democracy is not just a myth and an empty slogan on the lips of politicians, it must become a tool for the affirmation of a person for societies following its paths – a self-governing human subject who is open both to knowing the truth and to others. Following Styczeń’s central ideas of personalism, the author’s deliberations aim at answering the key question of democracy: What is the essence and expression of being of this self-governing human subject among other self-governing human subjects, and how does it then take the shape of democracy?

• Details
• Contents