From Person to Community. The Theory of Participation According to Karol Wojtyła

Keywords: subject, society, self-agency, self-realization

English abstract: The article shows the category of participation as the key, proposed by Karol Wojtyła, to understanding the person-community relationship. The philosopher from Kraków argues that a person fully reveals themselves as a personal being only when they work together with others on the foundation of participation. The capacity for subjective participation, which forms part of the very structure of a person, both determines a personalistic nature of the acts performed by the person, and also enables them to fulfil themselves in relation to others. For Wojtyła, participation is the antithesis of alienation, and its affirmation enables overcoming both the antinomy between the individual and the community, and the one-sided concepts of individualism and collectivism.