August Cieszkowski
Encyclopedia
Count August Cieszkowski (12 September 1814, Nowa Sucha
– 12 March 1894, Wierzenica
) was a Polish
philosopher, economist and social and political activist. His Hegelian philosophy influenced the young Karl Marx
and action theorists
.
and in then, from 1832, at the University of Berlin
where he became interested in Hegelianism through the lectures of Karl Ludwig Michelet
, who became a life-long friend. He gained his doctorate in philosophy from Heidelberg in 1838. After his studies he travelled around Europe, visiting France, England and Italy before returning to Poland in 1840 and settling permanently in Wierzenica, near Poznań
, in 1843.
Cieszkowski co-founded the Polish League (Liga Polska) in 1848. He was a member of the Prussian National Assembly (1848–1855) and a political activist. He (unsuccessfully) endeavoured to start a university in Poznań and co-founded the Poznań Society of Friends of Arts and Sciences
(PTPN) in 1857, being elected to its presidency three times (1857–1858, 1861–1868, 1885). It was the most important cultural and scientific society in Poland until the creation of Kraków's Academy of Learning
(Akademia Umiejętności) in 1871-73. In 1870 he founded the Halina School of Agriculture in Żabikowo, named after his wife Halina, who had died in 1861. In 1873 it became affiliated to the Kraków Academy of Learning
, established in 1872.
and mixed it with Hegelian categories and concepts. He is arguably the creator of the "philosophy of action." The first period of history was that of antiquity, in which the (Hegelian) spirit had not yet experienced the division of mind and body and living in a primal pre-reflective unity with nature, mainly expressing itself through art. The spirit was 'in itself' (an sich) in Hegelian jargon. The second period was the Christian era, which represented the birth of reflectiveness, a turning inwards and upwards from natural sensual immediacy toward the universal and abstract. The spirit existed 'for itself' (für sich). This period was marked by an intolerable duality between the opposed worlds of the God and temporal existence, spirit and matter, action and thought. The Hegelian philosophy of spirit, thought and universality at the expense of will, matter and particular existence represented the apotheosis and supreme manifestation of this period of history. The third period of history was the 'post-Hegelian' era in which the dualisms of the last were overcome and superseded. The one-sided emphasis on thought in the Christian era would be overcome and the spirit would assimilate nature to itself as well. Thus philosophy would come to an end as the synthesising and self-actualising activity of the spirit now took the form of creative practical activity. This final stage of the development of spirit represents the ultimate synthesis of opposites - God and world, necessity and freedom, desire and duty, Heaven and Earth are all as one.
Ciezskowski's later works, Gott und Paligenesie (God and Palingenesis
) (1842) and Ojcze Nasz (Our Father) (1848–1906, four volumes), reformulate his triad in much more explicitly religious terms. The three eras are expressed as those of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He stresses the role of the Catholic Church and accords a significant world-transforming role to the Slavs (a common theme in the Messianistic philosophy current in Poland at the time) in the process through which the Holy Spirit would emerge.
Ciezskowski's belief in a personal God, it has been argued, disqualifies him from being a Left Hegelian, who were distinguished from Hegel's more orthodox followers
by their generally critical attitude to religion and Christianity. He was certainly not counted by the Left as one of their own, even though the idea of the unity of philosophy of action was soon taken up by some of its members. On the other hand, he did incorporate an elaborate system of social reforms into his philosophy and was strongly influenced by the French socialist tradition, which was often overtly religious, and thus did not share the characteristic political conservatism of the 'Right Hegelians'.
, whom he met in Milan in 1839 and became close friends with (Józef Kallenbach published (in Polish) two volumes of their correspondence in 1912). He also influenced the poet Cyprian Norwid
, philosopher Bronisław Trentowski and philosopher, art historian and proto-psychologist Józef Kremer. He is arguably the creator of the "philosophy of action." His most important philosophical legacy is probably his influence on the young Karl Marx
, via German communist and Young Hegelian Moses Hess
. The latter adopted Cieszkowski's idea of that the dualism between consciousness and action would collapse in the latter part of the history of humanity, though he believed the synthesis had occurred on various occasions throughout history and located the transition to the 'third age' at the Reformation instead of the philosophy of Hegel. Marx, who was a friend of and collaborator with Hess from a few years from 1841 onwards, owes various aspects of his thought on alienation and the nature of and transition to communist society to Cieszkowski, including that the dualism between consciousness and action would collapse in revolutionary praxis.
The University of Life Sciences in Poznań
was named the August Cieszkowski Agricultural University of Poznań from 1996 until 11 April 2008, when it gained official university status, in recognition of Cieszkowski's contributions to agricultural science and education in the region.
Nowa Sucha, Wegrów County
Nowa Sucha is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Grębków, within Węgrów County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland....
– 12 March 1894, Wierzenica
Wierzenica
Wierzenica is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Swarzędz, within Poznań County, Greater Poland Voivodeship, in west-central Poland. It lies approximately north of Swarzędz and north-east of the regional capital Poznań....
) was a Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
philosopher, economist and social and political activist. His Hegelian philosophy influenced the young Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and action theorists
Action theory
Action theory is an area in philosophy concerned with theories about the processes causing willful human bodily movements of more or less complex kind. This area of thought has attracted the strong interest of philosophers ever since Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics...
.
Biography
Cieszkowski studied at the Jagiellonian UniversityJagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University was established in 1364 by Casimir III the Great in Kazimierz . It is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe and one of the oldest universities in the world....
and in then, from 1832, at the University of Berlin
Humboldt University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...
where he became interested in Hegelianism through the lectures of Karl Ludwig Michelet
Karl Ludwig Michelet
Karl Ludwig Michelet , German philosopher, was born at Berlin.He studied at the gymnasium and at the university of his native town, took his degree as doctor of philosophy in 1824, and became professor in 1829, a post which he retained till his death...
, who became a life-long friend. He gained his doctorate in philosophy from Heidelberg in 1838. After his studies he travelled around Europe, visiting France, England and Italy before returning to Poland in 1840 and settling permanently in Wierzenica, near Poznań
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
, in 1843.
Cieszkowski co-founded the Polish League (Liga Polska) in 1848. He was a member of the Prussian National Assembly (1848–1855) and a political activist. He (unsuccessfully) endeavoured to start a university in Poznań and co-founded the Poznań Society of Friends of Arts and Sciences
Poznan Society of Friends of Arts and Sciences
The Poznań Society of Friends of Learning is a learned society in Poznań, Poland, established in 1857, of scholars and scientists in all branches of learning...
(PTPN) in 1857, being elected to its presidency three times (1857–1858, 1861–1868, 1885). It was the most important cultural and scientific society in Poland until the creation of Kraków's Academy of Learning
Academy of Learning
Academy of Learning was a primary Polish scientific institution during the annexation of Poland founded in 1871 in Kraków and formed as a continuation of the Kraków Scientific Society . The institiution began activity two years later, in 1873...
(Akademia Umiejętności) in 1871-73. In 1870 he founded the Halina School of Agriculture in Żabikowo, named after his wife Halina, who had died in 1861. In 1873 it became affiliated to the Kraków Academy of Learning
Polish Academy of Learning
The Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences or Polish Academy of Learning , headquartered in Kraków, is one of two institutions in contemporary Poland having the nature of an academy of sciences....
, established in 1872.
Philosophy
Cieszkowski's 1838 work Prolegomena zur Historiosophie (Prolegomena to a Historiosophy) revised the Hegelian philosophy of history in an original manner. He adopted a threefold division of human history from medieval millenarians such as Joachim of FioreJoachim of Fiore
Joachim of Fiore, also known as Joachim of Flora and in Italian Gioacchino da Fiore , was the founder of the monastic order of San Giovanni in Fiore . He was a mystic, a theologian and an esoterist...
and mixed it with Hegelian categories and concepts. He is arguably the creator of the "philosophy of action." The first period of history was that of antiquity, in which the (Hegelian) spirit had not yet experienced the division of mind and body and living in a primal pre-reflective unity with nature, mainly expressing itself through art. The spirit was 'in itself' (an sich) in Hegelian jargon. The second period was the Christian era, which represented the birth of reflectiveness, a turning inwards and upwards from natural sensual immediacy toward the universal and abstract. The spirit existed 'for itself' (für sich). This period was marked by an intolerable duality between the opposed worlds of the God and temporal existence, spirit and matter, action and thought. The Hegelian philosophy of spirit, thought and universality at the expense of will, matter and particular existence represented the apotheosis and supreme manifestation of this period of history. The third period of history was the 'post-Hegelian' era in which the dualisms of the last were overcome and superseded. The one-sided emphasis on thought in the Christian era would be overcome and the spirit would assimilate nature to itself as well. Thus philosophy would come to an end as the synthesising and self-actualising activity of the spirit now took the form of creative practical activity. This final stage of the development of spirit represents the ultimate synthesis of opposites - God and world, necessity and freedom, desire and duty, Heaven and Earth are all as one.
Ciezskowski's later works, Gott und Paligenesie (God and Palingenesis
Palingenesis
Palingenesis is a concept of rebirth or re-creation, used in various contexts in philosophy, theology, politics, and biology. Its meaning stems from Greek palin, meaning again, and genesis, meaning birth....
) (1842) and Ojcze Nasz (Our Father) (1848–1906, four volumes), reformulate his triad in much more explicitly religious terms. The three eras are expressed as those of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He stresses the role of the Catholic Church and accords a significant world-transforming role to the Slavs (a common theme in the Messianistic philosophy current in Poland at the time) in the process through which the Holy Spirit would emerge.
Ciezskowski's belief in a personal God, it has been argued, disqualifies him from being a Left Hegelian, who were distinguished from Hegel's more orthodox followers
Right Hegelians
The Right Hegelians, Old Hegelians, or the Hegelian Right, were those followers of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in the early 19th century who took his philosophy in a politically and religiously conservative direction...
by their generally critical attitude to religion and Christianity. He was certainly not counted by the Left as one of their own, even though the idea of the unity of philosophy of action was soon taken up by some of its members. On the other hand, he did incorporate an elaborate system of social reforms into his philosophy and was strongly influenced by the French socialist tradition, which was often overtly religious, and thus did not share the characteristic political conservatism of the 'Right Hegelians'.
Legacy
Cieszkowski exerted a significant (and reciprocated) influence on Polish Romantic poet, playwright and Gothic novelist Zygmunt KrasinskiZygmunt Krasinski
Count Napoleon Stanisław Adam Ludwig Zygmunt Krasiński , a Polish count, is traditionally ranked with Mickiewicz and Słowacki as one of Poland's Three National Bards — the trio of great Romantic poets who influenced national consciousness during the period of Poland's political bondage.-Life and...
, whom he met in Milan in 1839 and became close friends with (Józef Kallenbach published (in Polish) two volumes of their correspondence in 1912). He also influenced the poet Cyprian Norwid
Cyprian Norwid
Cyprian Kamil Norwid, a.k.a. Cyprian Konstanty Norwid is a nationally esteemed Polish poet, dramatist, painter, and sculptor. He was born in the Masovian village of Laskowo-Głuchy near Warsaw. One of his maternal ancestors was Polish King John III Sobieski.Norwid is regarded as one of the second...
, philosopher Bronisław Trentowski and philosopher, art historian and proto-psychologist Józef Kremer. He is arguably the creator of the "philosophy of action." His most important philosophical legacy is probably his influence on the young Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, via German communist and Young Hegelian Moses Hess
Moses Hess
Moses Hess was a Jewish philosopher and socialist, and one of the founders of Labor Zionism.-Life:Hess was born in Bonn, which was under French rule at the time. In his French-language birth certificate, his name is given as "Moises"; he was named after his maternal grandfather...
. The latter adopted Cieszkowski's idea of that the dualism between consciousness and action would collapse in the latter part of the history of humanity, though he believed the synthesis had occurred on various occasions throughout history and located the transition to the 'third age' at the Reformation instead of the philosophy of Hegel. Marx, who was a friend of and collaborator with Hess from a few years from 1841 onwards, owes various aspects of his thought on alienation and the nature of and transition to communist society to Cieszkowski, including that the dualism between consciousness and action would collapse in revolutionary praxis.
The University of Life Sciences in Poznań
University of Life Sciences in Poznan
The University of Life Sciences in Poznań is a higher-education institution in Poznań, Poland. It officially gained university status on 11 April 2008. Its previous name was Akademia Rolnicza im...
was named the August Cieszkowski Agricultural University of Poznań from 1996 until 11 April 2008, when it gained official university status, in recognition of Cieszkowski's contributions to agricultural science and education in the region.
Works
- Prolegomena zur Historiosophie (Prolegomena to a Historiosophy) (1838)
- Gott und Palingenesie (God and Palingenesis) (1842)
- Ojcze Nasz (Our Father) (1848)
See also
- History of philosophy in Poland
- List of Poles