Filozofia dziejów według Jana Karola Kochanowskiego
The philosophy of history according to Jan Karol Kochanowski

Summary/Abstract: The article is an attempt to analyse selected threads of thoughts by Jan Karol Kochanowski, an advocate of a naturalistic conception of man and society. In his historiosophic deliberations, Kochanowski made an attempt to reveal the real face of the history hiding behind superficial facts in fact. The philosopher interprets all the facts as remaining in a close relationship with the psyche of nations. According to historiosophy by Kochanowski, the history of mankind is a result of two parallel mechanisms. The first one consists in a clash of the elements of the South and the North, the other, on the other hand, expresses itself in a constant battle for a social dominance between the individual and mass. A diversification of natural environments of mankind into areas requiring fortitude and effort from their inhabitants and those territories in favour of man led to two main psychological types of mankind. The north one with a dominance of desire and the south one dominated by satisfaction. The history of mankind is a constant battle between the North and the South, coming down to a clash of active and conquering psychological types with those passive and submissive ones. This very antagonism is, according to Kochanowski, the main causative force of history. What needs a special attention is Kochanowski's reflection on the Polish national character. In his opinion, the history of Poland together with the national culture bring a great deal of evidence of our own identity and "dignity" in comparison to European cultures. The philosopher, tracing back to Neo-romanticism, formulated a hypothesis about the historical mission of Poland, deriving from a geopolitical situation of the Polish nation.

• Details
• Contents