Mały błąd na początku: Obrona chrześcijańskiej cywilizacji wolności. Perspektywa amerykańska i gilsonowska
Small Mistake in the Beginning: Defense of Christian Civilization of Freedom. An American and Gilsonian Perspective

Summary/Abstract: The starting point of the article are two principles that Gilson uses to weave together different intellectual scenarios within The Unity of Philosophical Experience into a historical-philosophical thriller about what happens to philosophical teachings once they leave the abstract thought of philosophers and they, or others, try to put them into practice in the real world. The first principle, borrowed from Aristotle, states that small mistakes about first principles made at the start of an intellectual investigation tend to multiply many times over as the study continues. The second principle, taken from Aristotle and French painter Georges Braque, is that we choose the way we can, not the way we wish. As the author explains Gilson then translates this second principle into an observation about the twofold nature of possibility: 1) conceptually thinkable in which “we call possible whatever is not intrinsically impossible – that is, any object whose notion is not self-contradictory”; and, 2), a humanly doable deed – what “after being conceived by the mind, can be made to exist in reality”. Next, like a skilled psychologist, Gilson applies these principles to the behavior of people who consider themselves to be philosophers to transform his monograph from a tale of disparate psychological experiments into the powerful, organic, whole book in philosophical history.

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