University of Wrocław

English abstract: The study is an essay on Beata Polanowska-Sygulska’s book Harmonia i dysonans. Wokół rozmów z filozofami oksfordzkimi [Harmony and Dissonance. Around Conversations with Oxford Philosophers]. The essay contains comments on the social and political context in which the various sections of the book were written, on Polanowska-Sygulska’s distinctive writing style, and on the unique nature of sources from which she drew her knowledge about the Oxford philosophers. Of the philosophers presented in the book, here I choose to focus my attention only on selected figures: I. Berlin, L. Kołakowski, and J. Gray. The choice of the first two was determined by the phenomenon of convergence of the two philosophers’ topics of interest. It is the ethical dilemmas taken up by Berlin and Kołakowski that became the guiding idea of the entire book, and, moreover, a challenge whose topicality is felt in a unique way today (e.g., the context of the war in Ukraine). In the essay, I also formulate some critical remarks about the author’s assessment of the theoretical grounding of L. Kołakowski’s philosophy. In the passages devoted to J. Gray and his Feline Philosophy – while agreeing with the author’s critical assessment of the philosophical and social stance outlined there – I additionally attempt to point out its destructive influence on the philosophy of law. A reasonable alternative to Gray’s ethical and legal nihilism may be precisely the BerlinKołakowski movement of value pluralism and the possibility of a ‘pragmatic balance’ perceived by both philosophers, which can be exemplified by the Comprehensive Law Movement. 

Keywords: Oxford philosophers, harmony and dissonance, value pluralism, agonism, legal holism

Language: Polish

Published: Number 1(38)/2024, pp. 5-18.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2024.1.5

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Number of downloads: 264

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Jagiellonian University in Kraków

English abstract: The aim of the article is to carry out a parallel analysis of Isaiah Berlin’s and Leszek Kołakowski’s ethical visions. Special attention is given to the ideas developed by both thinkers in their early two essays, both published in 1958, though their later works are also taken into account. Juxtaposition of several threads inherent in their essays, backed by appropriate excerpts from their work, leads to the following conclusions. Both philosophers draw stunningly similar visions of moral life. Both of them dissociate themselves from ethical monism and from ethical relativism. However, Berlin’s standpoint, named by him value pluralism, is of strictly empiricist and thus anti-metaphysical character, while Kołakowski claims that in ethics there is no escape from metaphysics.

Keywords: Isaiah Berlin, Leszek Kołakowski, value pluralism, ethical monism, ethical relativism, empiricism, myth

Language: Polish

Published: Number 3(28)/2021, pp. 95-106

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2021.3.95

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Number of downloads: 519

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial – No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Jagiellonian University in Kraków

English abstract: The article constitutes a continuation of the discussion between Henry Hardy and myself, which was initiated in AFPiFS in 2019 as a result of my publishing a review of Hardy’s book: In Search of Isaiah Berlin: A Literary Adventure (2018). In the present commentary I address again the nub of our disagreement, that is the relationship between Berlin’s pluralism and universalist religions, like Christianity and Islam. According to Hardy pluralism undermines universalist religions. I distance myself from his standpoint and argue that it is possible to reconcile adherence to pluralist perspective in ethics with religious belief. Besides, I return to the objection raised in my review of Hardy’s book and take up the thread of conflicts within values. I sustain my charge that Hardy does not take seriously enough the implications of conflicts within single values.

Keywords: value pluralism, universalist religions, religious pluralism, conflicts within values

Language: English

Published: Number 3(24)/2020, pp. 127-129.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2020.3.127

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Number of downloads: 613

Jagiellonian University in Kraków

Abstract: The article discusses Henry Hardy’s book In Search of Isaiah Berlin: A Literary Adventure, published in the fall of 2018. The author was Berlin’s closest collaborator and is the editor or co-editor of eighteen volumes of his works and four volumes of his letters. The first part of the book is a memoir, here discussed briefly; the main focus is on the second, philosophical, section. Hardy’s investigations into Berlin’s ideas are analysed and criticised. Special attention is given to his unresolved discussion with Berlin on the relationship between pluralism and religion. A number of critical arguments against Hardy’s thesis of their mutual exclusion are put forward. The key argument is that it is possible for a true pluralist to adhere to a universalist religion. This is the same position as that adopted by Berlin.

Keywords: Isaiah Berlin, value pluralism, cultural pluralism, religious monism, universalist religion

Language: English

Published: Number 2(20)/2019, pp. 89-99.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2019.2.89

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Number of downloads: 703

University of Oxford

English abstract: Henry Hardy responds to various minor points in Beata Polanowska-Sygulska’s review of his book In Search of Isaiah Berlin, and argues that she provides no good reason to resist his claim that Isaiah Berlin’s value pluralism is inconsistent with mainstream forms of religious belief.

Keywords: value pluralism, religion, Isaiah Berlin

Language: English

Published: Number 2(20)/2012, pp. 100-103.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2019.2.100

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Number of downloads: 673