Direct and Intuitive Cognition in the Philosophy of Polish Romanticism

Abstract

The comprehensive introductory part of the present article is a discussion of the notion of the intuition in the ancient and classical understanding, ultimately established in the centuries-old European philosophical tradition. Especially important in this context are the intuitive components contained in neoplatonism. It is the intuition that initiates cognitive processes and then it involves references to metaphors and images, but it also crowns the cognitive process in the unifying vision of a true being, identical with reason. The stages of the process are accompanied by a special kind of intuition. In the context of this kind of tradition the understanding of both intuition and direct cognition in Polish Romanticism becomes enriched. “Feeling” can be legitimately interpreted as “intuition” for what really exists, and thus constituting the basis for an expanded hierarchy of values. It is thanks to the concept of reason, different from its understanding in Enlightenment, enriched with “feeling” and imagination, that Romanticism regained the view of man, forgotten in the preceding epoch, as the being directed towards its eschatological destination. Subsequently the above currents of thought were profusely illustrated with references to the views of Polish Romantic thinkers, like Maurycy Mochnacki, particularly Bronisław Trentowski and August Cieszkowski.