The Philosophy of Roman Ingarden

Abstract

One of the most outstanding Polish philosophers, Roman Ingarden, was a bilingual writer. His fundamental works are available in Polish and German versions. In the 1950s, when Ingarden lapsed into silence on account of political ideology (he was not allowed to depart from Poland or give lectures at the university), his thought was presented on the international forum by his student—Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. In 1952 she wrote her doctoral dissertation at Fribourg on Ingarden and Hartmann. It was published in 1957 as the first book devoted to Ingarden’s philosophy.1 Tymieniecka’s “lecture at the World Congress of Philosophy in Brussels in 1953 entitled Roman Ingarden, ou une nouvelle position du probleme idealisme-realisme (Roman Ingarden, or the New Position of the Idealism-Realism Problem) was the very first time that Ingarden’s thought was directly presented in Western Europe”.2