Evidence of Karol Wojtyła’s thought formation as preserved in archival materials

Abstract

The purpose of the present article is to present selected differences between two versions of the endings of Karol Wojtyła’s postdoctoral dissertation Ocena możliwości zbudowania etyki chrześcijańskiej przy założeniach systemu Maksa Schelera. The endings are available in the archival materials deposited in the Archives of the Metropolitan Curia in Krakow. On the basis of the differences indicated, the author defends the thesis that in the later version of the ending Wojtyła softened and nuanced his attitude to Max Scheler’s philosophy as well as to phenomenology as a research method. The article also takes up clues pointing to a change in philosophical attitude that took place in Karol Wojtyła’s philosophy in the 1950s. This change shifts from a strictly metaphysical attitude – based on Thomistic metaphysics – to a strictly anthropological attitude, which is founded on Thomistic metaphysics. In the anthropological attitude, Wojtyła finds much greater application capabilities for the phenomenological method, but ultimately the results obtained through it depend on their compatibility with the metaphysical background of his philosophy.