The history of philosophy in Poland parallels the evolution of philosophy in Europe in general.
Overview Polish philosophy drew upon the broader currents of European philosophy, and in turn contributed to their growth. Some of the most momentous Polish contributions came, in the thirteenth century, from the Scholastic philosopher and scientist Vitello, and, in the sixteenth century, from the Renaissance polymath Nicolaus Copernicus.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Zarys dziejów filozofii w Polsce (A Brief History of Philosophy in Poland), p. 32.
Subsequently, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth partook in the intellectual ferment of the Enlightenment, which for the multi-ethnic Commonwealth ended not long after the 1772-1795 partitions and political annihilation that would last for the next 123 years, until the collapse of the three partitioning empires in World War I.
The period of Messianism, between the November 1830 and January 1863 Uprisings, reflected European Romantic and Idealist trends, as well as a Polish yearning for political resurrection. It was a period of maximalist metaphysical systems.
The collapse of the January 1863 Uprising prompted an agonizing reappraisal of Poland's situation. Poles gave up their earlier practice of "measuring their resources by their aspirations" and buckled down to hard work and study. "[A] Positivist", wrote the novelist Bolesław Prus' friend, Julian Ochorowicz, was "anyone who bases assertions on verifiable evidence; who does not express himself categorically about doubtful things, and does not speak at all about those that are inaccessible."Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Historia filozofii (History of Philosophy), vol. 3, p. 177.
The twentieth century brought a new quickening to Polish philosophy. There was growing interest in western philosophical currents. Rigorously-trained Polish philosophers made substantial contributions to specialized fields—to psychology, the history of philosophy, the theory of knowledge, and especially mathematical logic.Tatarkiewicz, Zarys..., p. 32. Jan Łukasiewicz gained world fame with his concept of many-valued logic and his "Polish notation."Kazimierz Kuratowski, A Half Century of Polish Mathematics, pp. 23–24, 33. Alfred Tarski's work in truth theory won him world renown.Kazimierz Kuratowski, A Half Century of Polish Mathematics, p. 30 and passim.
After World War II, for over four decades, world-class Polish philosophers and historians of philosophy such as Władysław Tatarkiewicz continued their work, often in the face of adversities occasioned by the dominance of a politically enforced official philosophy. The phenomenologist Roman Ingarden did influential work in esthetics and in a Husserl-style metaphysics; his student Karol Wojtyła acquired a unique influence on the world stage as Pope John Paul II.
Scholasticism
The formal history of philosophy in Poland may be said to have begun in the fifteenth century, following the revival of the University of Kraków by King Władysław II Jagiełło in 1400.Tatarkiewicz, Zarys..., p. 5.
The true beginnings of Polish philosophy, however, reach back to the thirteenth century and Vitello (c. 1230 – c. 1314), a Silesian born to a Polish mother and a Thuringian settler, a contemporary of Thomas Aquinas who had spent part of his life in Italy at centers of the highest intellectual culture. In addition to being a philosopher, he was a scientist who specialized in optics. His famous treatise, Perspectiva, while drawing on the Arabic Book of Optics by Alhazen, was unique in Latin literature,Tatarkiewicz, Zarys..., p. 5. and in turn helped inspire Roger Bacon's best work, Part V of his Opus maius, "On Perspectival Science," as well as his supplementary treatise On the Multiplication of Vision.Will Durant, The Age of Faith, p. 1011. Vitello's Perspectiva additionally made important contributions to psychology: it held that vision per se apprehends only colors and light while all else, particularly the distance and size of objects, is established by means of association and unconscious deduction.
Vitello's concept of being was one rare in the Middle Ages, neither Augustinian as among conservatives nor Aristotelian as among progressives, but Neoplatonist. It was an emanationist concept that held radiation to be the prime characteristic of being, and ascribed to radiation the nature of light. This "metaphysic of light" inclined Vitello to optical research, or perhaps vice versa his optical studies led to his metaphysic.Tatarkiewicz, Zarys..., pp. 5–6.
According to the Polish historian of philosophy, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, no Polish philosopher since Vitello has enjoyed so eminent a European standing as this thinker who belonged, in a sense, to the prehistory of Polish philosophy.Tatarkiewicz, Zarys..., p. 6.
From the beginning of the fifteenth century, Polish philosophy, centered at Kraków University, pursued a normal course. It no longer harbored exceptional thinkers such as Vitello, but it did feature representatives of all wings of mature Scholasticism, via antiqua as well as via moderna.
The first of these to reach Kraków was via moderna, then the more widespread movement in Europe.Tatarkiewicz, Historia filozofii, vol. 1, p. 311. In physics, logic and ethics, Terminism (Nominalism) prevailed in Kraków, under the influence of the French Scholastic, Jean Buridan (died c. 1359), who had been rector of the University of Paris and an exponent of views of William of Ockham. Buridan had formulated the theory of "impetus"—the force that causes a body, once set in motion, to persist in motion—and stated that impetus is proportional to the speed of, and amount of matter comprising, a body: Buridan thus anticipated Galileo and Isaac Newton. His theory of impetus was momentous in that it also explained the motions of celestial bodies without resort to the spirits—"intelligentiae"—to which the Peripatetics (followers of Aristotle) had ascribed those motions.Tatarkiewicz, Historia filozofii, vol. 1, pp. 303–4. At Kraków, physics was now expounded by (St.) Jan Kanty (1390–1473), who developed this concept of "impetus."
A general trait of the Kraków Scholastics was a provlivity for compromise—for reconciling Nominalism with the older tradition. For example, the Nominalist, Benedict Hesse, while in principle accepting the theory of impetus, did not apply it to the heavenly spheres.
In the second half of the fifteenth century, at Kraków, via antiqua became dominant. Nominalism retreated, and the old Scholasticism triumphed.
In this period, Thomism had its chief center at Cologne, whence it influenced Kraków. Cologne, formerly the home ground of Albertus Magnus, had preserved Albert's mode of thinking. Thus the Cologne philosophers formed two wings, the Thomist and Albertist, and even Cologne's Thomists showed Neoplatonist traits characteristic of Albert, affirming emanation, a hierarchy of being, and a metaphysic of light.
The chief Kraków adherents of the Cologne-style Thomism included Jan of Głogów (c. 1445 – 1507) and Jakub of Gostynin (c. 1454 – 1506). Another, purer teacher of Thomism was Michał Falkener of Wrocław (c. 1450 – 1534).Tatarkiewicz, Zarys..., pp. 6–7.
Almost at the same time, Scotism appeared in Poland, having been brought from Paris first by Michał Twaróg of Bystrzyków (c. 1450 – 1520). Twaróg had studied at Paris in 1473–77, in the period when, following the anathematization of the Nominalists (1473), the Scotist school was there enjoying its greatest triumphs. A prominent student of Twaróg's, Jan of Stobnica (c. 1470 – 1519), was already a moderate Scotist who took account of the theories of the Ockhamists, Thomists and Humanists.Tatarkiewicz, Zarys..., p. 7.
When Nominalism was revived in western Europe at the turn of the sixteenth century, particularly thanks to Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (Faber Stapulensis), it presently reappeared in Kraków and began taking the upper hand there once more over Thomism and Scotism. It was reintroduced particularly by Lefèvre's pupil, Jan Szylling, a native of Kraków who had studied at Paris in the opening years of the sixteenth century. Another follower of Lefèvre's was Grzegorz of Stawiszyn, a Kraków professor who, beginning in 1510, published the Frenchman's works at Kraków.
Thus Poland had made its appearance as a separate philosophical center only at the turn of the fifteenth century, at a time when the creative period of Scholastic philosophy had already passed. Throughout the fifteenth century, Poland harbored all the currents of Scholasticism. The advent of Humanism in Poland would find a Scholasticism more vigorous than in other countries. Indeed, Scholasticism would survive the 16th and 17th centuries and even part of the 18th at Kraków and Wilno Universities and at numerous Jesuit, Dominican and Franciscan colleges.Tatarkiewicz, Zarys..., pp. 7–8.
To be sure, in the sixteenth century, with the arrival of the Renaissance, Scholasticism would enter upon a decline; but during the 17th century's Counter-Reformation, and even into the early 18th century, Scholasticism would again become Poland's chief philosophy.Tatarkiewicz, Zarys..., pp. 7–8.
Renaissance
The spirit of Humanism, which had reached Poland by the middle of the fifteenth century, was not very "philosophical." Rather, it lent its stimulus to linguistic studies, political thought, and scientific research. But these manifested a philosophical attitude different from that of the previous period.Tatarkiewicz, Zarys..., p. 8.
Empirical natural science had flourished at Kraków as early as the fifteenth century, side by side with speculative philosophy. The most perfect product of this blossoming was Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543, ). He was not only a scientist but a philosopher. According to Tatarkiewicz, he may have been the greatest—in any case, the most renowned—philosopher that Poland ever produced. He drew the inspiration for his cardinal discovery from philosophy; he had become acquainted through Marsilio Ficino with the philosophies of Plato and the Pythagoreans; and through the writings of the philosophers Cicero and Plutarch he had learned about the ancients who had declared themselves in favor of the Earth's movement.Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Outline of the History of Philosophy in Poland," translated from the Polish by Christopher Kasparek, The Polish Review, vol. XVIII, no. 3, 1973, p. 77.
Copernicus may also have been influenced by Kraków philosophy: during his studies there, Terminist physics had been taught, with special emphasis on "impetus." His own thinking was guided by philosophical considerations. He arrived at the heliocentric thesis (as he was to write in a youthful treatise) "ratione postea equidem sensu": it was not observation but the discovery of a logical contradiction in Ptolemy's system, that served him as a point of departure that led to the new astronomy. In his dedication to Pope Paul III, he submitted his work for judgment by "philosophers."Tatarkiewicz, Zarys..., p. 9.
In its turn, Copernicus' theory transformed man's view of the structure of the universe, and of the place held in it by the earth and by man, and thus attained a far-reaching philosophical importance.