Gustaw Szpet – próba portretu
Gustaw Szpet – an attempted portrait

Summary/Abstract: Gustaw Szpet was born on 7 April (25 March old style) 1879 in Kiev. His first book – The Phenomenonand Sense – with subtitle Phenomenology as a basic study and its problems, is dedicated to EdmundHusserl. The book is an introduction to phenomenology which refers to the program of work of thethinker from Göttingen. Szpet’s position is pluralist. His pluralism is based on social ontology. It isempirical, experimental pluralism. Multiplicity of realities demands different – as Husserl describesthem – “material or regional” ontologies. Szpet started his mature period of philosophical – scientificactivity by writing an astute record about the creator of phenomenology and developing his ownhypotheses. With a reliable research method which was particularly predestined to explore thehuman world, he studied different “regional ontologies”, or ontologies – as it was named at the time –a separate “series of cultures”. History turned out to be an important field of social – cultural realityfor Szpet. He treated history (historical science) as another “subject” demanding eidetic analysis. Inthe twenties, much more detailed studies were rooted in philosophical ideas, which were concentratedaround the problems associated with the traditional methods including the “first philosophy”(or, as some prefer to metaphilosophy). For Szpet they were focused (what is natural for phenomenologist)on consciousness and the subject. Szpet was tracing psychologism in humanistic studies.He decided to confront psychologism on its own territory by publishing in the second half of thetwenties a book dedicated to ethnic psychology. Before his life was brutally ended during the peakof his career in 1937 he made a significant contribution toward Russian philosophy and culture.

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