Казимир Твардовський

This article aims to draw on the philosophical legacy of Kasimir Twardowski and Stepan Baley to conceptually clarify the moral problem of patriotism, define its nature, and identify its moral boundaries. The first part of the article analyzes the concept of patriotism and offers its classification based on the type of love that underlies it. Instinctive patriotism is grounded in unconditional love (storgē) for the homeland as for a mother or parental home.

The symbolic date of the founding of the Lviv-Warsaw School is considered to be November 15, 1895. On this day, the young Kasimir Twardowski (29 years old) delivered his first, introductory lecture at Lviv University, where he began his academic career as a professor of philosophy. His academic career at this University would continue until 1930, the year he retired. During these 35 years of activity at Lviv University, Kasimir Twardowski managed to create a School that became famous in Central and Eastern Europe in the interwar period, and nowadays this school is world-renowned.

A new collective monograph on the founder of the Lviv-Warsaw School Kazimierz Twardowski, edited by Jacek Jadacki, a professor at the University of Warsaw, deepens our knowledge of this outstanding figure in Polish culture and science. This collective monograph reveals Kazimierz Twardowski as a multifaceted personality: a patriot, a philosopher, a teacher, and a scholar. The review examines all sections of the collective monograph, which are united by a common goal – to show the uniqueness of the figure of Kazimierz Twardowski.

International Symposium “The Legacy of Kazimierz Twardowski” was organized by Committee of Philosophical Disciplines, Polish Academy of Sciences; Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw; Institute of Philosophy, Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz; Kazimierz Twardowski’s Philosophical Society of Lviv, was held in Warsaw.

Kasimir Twardowski’s article „On clear and unclear philosophical style” is considered as one of his manifests of the Lviv-Warsaw School: clarity of expressing thoughts was one of methodological determinants of this school. Because of some passages in this article, Twardowski is often considered as a philosopher who believed that we may only think in words. In the article, Twardowski’s views on the relation between language and speech are analyzed through the prism of the less known Twardowski’s writings with application of some theoretical distinctions.

30th Jubilee Twardowski’s Readings were organized by Kazimierz Twardowski Lviv Philosophical Society with the cooperation of the Chair of Philosophy in Lviv Polytechnic National University, Institute for Philosophy, Logic, and Sociology (Lviv) and Institute for Philosophy in University of Warsaw. The Readings were hosted by Center for Urban History of East Central Europe. The new format of Twardowski’s readings was introduced.

On 7 November 2016, Lviv hosted an unusual philosophical event: Symposium “Kazimierz Twardowski’s Philosophy: History and Contemporary Interpretations”. The reason for this was the fact that 2016 is a year of the 150th Anniversary of the philosopher’s birth. This Symposium was organized by Lviv Philosophical Society named after Kazimierz Twardowski and supported by the Institute of Philosophy, the University of Warsaw. A lot of scholars, mainly from Poland and Ukraine, has taken part in this Symposium.