On a would – be dispute. The problem of human freedom in the works of Józef Tischner and Leszek Kołakowski

Abstract

In the 1970s, a very interesting debate took place between Tischner and the Thomist philosophers. In the early 1980s, Tischner started a dispute with Marxism. According to the author of the article, there were many indications that at the end of the 1990s he would fight another intellectual war against liberalism, and in particular with its way of viewing human freedom. For many reasons, this dispute did not happen. The author of the article believes that Leszek Kołakowski could have been the main adversary in this dispute.The majority of contemporary intellectuals would agree that freedom is fundamental to human existence. This view was shared by both Leszek Kołakowski and Józef Tischner, therefore the dispute would concern the nature of internal freedom rather than the external one. Either of the adversaries saw it, in a different way. Kołakowski was close to the liberal approach to freedom. In turn, Tischner’s view of freedom was closer to the way St. Augustine had understood it. In this text, the author introduces both these concepts of freedom. He also believes that an attempt to measure the validity of the arguments of both adversaries could be made in relation to the essence of man.