In previous eras, in the early Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Polish philosophical culture was permanently tied to the West and reached the peak of its development. The high level of the last two generations of Renaissance humanists (Rej, Kochanowski, Frycz Modrzewski, Górski, Górnicki, Goślicki, Budny) meant that towards the 16th century they began to translate classic philosophical works into Polish or philosophise in Polish. In this way, Polish philosophy entered the 17th century equipped with a mature national language terminology, harmonised with the Greek and Latin lexicons. Stanisław Orzechowski (1513–1566) left an unfinished Polish-language work, titled Policyja (the title refers to the Greek concept of politeía, which is res publica in Latin), in which he combined the Aristotelian and neo-Platonic metaphysical and social patterns with a new narrative, heralding Baroque Sarmatism. In the 1570s, Cyprian Bazylik (1535–1600) translated Frycz Modrzewski’s (1503–1572) main work, titled Commentariorum De Republica emendanda libri quinque (Five Books of Commentaries on the Improvement of Commonwealth). At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, Sebastian Petrycy from Pilsen (1554–1626) translated and provided commentary for the works of Aristoteles on practical philosophy (Economics, Politics and part of Nicomachean Ethics). Polish terminology was also enriched thanks to many textbook projects, such as that of Marek Korona (1590–1651) in the area of logic. In this respect, therefore, Poland was ahead of the neighbouring countries, and the driving force behind this process was – apart from the achievements of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance – the original parliamentary system and the very lively, in European terms, public discourse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the period after the first free election.
However, at the beginning of the 17th century, a very strong stratification of society could be seen, the division into ethnic and religious communities increasingly aware of their separateness increased, and finally, the attention of the educated Poles turned partly from the European West to the Slavic and Ottoman East. Polish philosophy was subject to new influences at the crossroads of cultural circles, which brought with it cultural and economic exchange, but also wars. The system of the Polish and Lithuanian federation, and especially the Crown, was specific: the free election of the king, the foreign dynasties, parliamentarism based on the principles of interim and liberum veto, the weakness of the central administration, the lack of regular taxes and regular troops, and finally the lack of stable political solutions for the terrain of modern-day Ukraine. In mid-17th century, crises intensified, which on the one hand gave impulse to development of intellectual culture, and on the other hand increasingly hindered internal and external communication. Against this background, Polish philosophy of the 17th century was more diverse in terms of themes and sociology in previous centuries.
Among its specific characteristics is the number of centres of intellectual and political life. In the 17th century, the culture of the noble court was in full bloom, urban schools developed (among the famous were the middle schools in Danzig, Toruń and Elbląg) as well as religious ones (Jesuit, Calvinist, Jewish and, until mid-17th century, anti-trinitarian). The European network of leading scholars through semi-public correspondence (the so-called Republic of Letters) included especially the northern regions of Poland. Part of the philosophical discourse migrated to art, literature and rhetorics, which resulted in a weakening of classical philosophy and at the same time strengthening of conceptual imagery. Western philosophical thought – which at the time laid the foundations for innovative societies that were highly organised in terms of administration, the military and science – was not received very well. Only fragments of discussions about the role of new natural and technical sciences (Francis Bacon, 1561–1626; Pierre Gassendi, 1592–1655), about cogito sum and the subject of learning (René Descartes, 1596–1650), about metaphysics, which was completely redefining itself (Baruch de Spinoza, 1632–1677; Descartes; Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 1646–1716), mathematics and logic as primary sciences in relation to other, including philosophy (Descartes, Leibniz, and finally about the pre-Enlightenment patterns in social thought (Spinoza; Thomas Hobbes, 1588–1679; John Locke, 1632–1704). A relatively systematic reception of these new trends took place only in the thriving, but constantly threated – and in 1652, forcibly closed – Racovian Academy, ran by the anti-Trinitarians, who were considered to be particularly dangerous heretics in all of Europe, but also – usually in secret – valued for their intellectual vitality. Therefore, the Racovian accomplishments are today the part of Polish philosophy of the 17th century best known abroad.
In 17th century Polish philosophy, practical, political and ethical subject dominated, useful in public discourse in the country that considered itself to be a free Commonwealth. In ontology and epistemology, neo-scholastic concepts reigned supreme, which inscribed themselves, in a slightly less original way, into the European discourse, particularly that initiated by Francisco Suárez (1548–1617). Although major successes of Polish theoretical philosophers on the European scene were lacking, it is worth noting the high level and versatility of philosophical education in many Polish schools, as well as the addition of philosophy to the public discourse.
The beginnings of the new epoch coincide with the decades after the first free election of the king. At the transition from Renaissance humanism to Baroque Sarmatism, Piotr Skarga (1536–1612) drafted a pro-monarchic vision with a strong confessionalist leaning, attempting to refer to the emerging soteriological hopes of the middle nobility. Poles, as the chosen people of God, of which Stanisław Orzechowski had spoken in the previous generation, increasingly felt themselves to be the last heirs of the ancient Roman republic in Europe; however, in this role – contrary to the intentions of Skarga – they emphasised their sovereignty to the king, whom, as the only ones in Europe, they elected completely freely (provided, of course, that they belonged to the nobility). Thus, motifs of freedom known from classical Roman thought began to dominate the public discourse after 1600, at the time connected with a fundamental distrust of the kind, as well as active opposition against him. In the publicity of the Zebrzydowski Rebellion (1606–1609) and the following decades, key concepts of political struggle began to intertwine with classical philosophical motifs.
One of the most important public philosophers of the first half of the 17th century was Szymon Starowolski (1588–1656). Standing above political divisions, he spoke as a lawyer and a polymath. In his work, there was a particular note, connecting the optimism typical for noble parliamentarism and official Counter-Reformation and politico-metaphysical maximalism with Baroque sensitivity to death and a deep sense of the futility of all human effort on the earthly vale. Starowolski was a model Sarmatian, while at the same time writing texts that were understandable for the absolutist West, despite the paradigms of Polish republicanism arousing astonishment and reserve there. When he spoke as a critic of the freedom of conscience that prevailed in Poland – or, to put it differently, religious tolerance – he did so in terms of political persuasion, which was not free of threats and lies, but in the light of the typical for the era religious wars, testified to the freedom of conscience that existed in Poland and was to disappear only after Starowolski’s death. In public debate, he spoke against current humanist projects of modernising the country and stood on the side of the wisdom of direct social practices, not based on philosophical concepts. Warning against naïve pacifism, he strongly called for defence of the Commonwealth, as well as a pre-emptive strike of all Europeans against the Turks, whom he stereotypically depicted as ancient enemies of Christianity.
Another important philosophising representative of the Sarmatian trend was Andrzej Maksymilian Fredro (1620–1679), a politician (he was the marshal of the Sejm in 1652, reportedly the first in a long term of broken Sejms), an historian (in the meaning of res gestae of the time) and theoretician of the state, military and economy. His works were not based on a specific philosophical method, but were pragmatic to the point of opportunism. The high class of public debate was exemplified in the fact that this representative of “conservative” Sarmatism encouraged Poles to use newer western models as a remedy for the backwardness of their own economy (mercantilism: the state guarantees internal free trade and regulates external trade, supports manufacture and related technological development). Both Starowolski and Fredro expressed the conservative point of views in their worldview, and used its mythology; in practical matters, after all, they remained close to the western institutionalism, which rather corresponded to the interests of the king and the government.
The true alternative for this “Sarmatian modernism” in social thought were the teachings of Polish anti-Trinitarians. Anti-Trinitarianism was a rationalist school of metaphysics and religion, aimed particularly at dogmas, such as the one about the Holy Trinity. The group, in the 17th century focused mainly in Raków, and later scattered around the world (Amsterdam, Transylvania, America), stood out against the background of the whole society. Racovians were a mixture in terms of status, open to people with bourgeoisie and even plebeian origins, although the congregation was dominated by nobles and foreigners, who had been Polonised with time. In the first phase from 1562 (the founding of the post-Calvinist Ecclesia Minor in Piczów) to 1592 (the appearance of Fausto Sozzini, 1539–1604, as a dominant figure), the group was fascinated by various religious and social radicalisms. It was not until 1600 that a solid compromise was developed, allowing its members a steady engagement in public and political life. The doctrinal foundations came from heterodox humanism and radical reformation of the 16th century; from the time of Sozzini, especially after his death in 1604, rationalism and the tendency to freely philosophise all themes, including religious, to the creation of a rational doctrine of a natural religion, were strengthened. The Polish brethren, as they called themselves, attracted the best minds to their school, from Poland and neighbouring countries. At their printing house, they published works banned in all of Europe, which despite this – or perhaps because of it – reached the shelves of the best libraries; there was a particularly extensive collection of works by the previously mentioned John Locke, although he publicly distanced himself that he was influenced by the Racovians. The small minority was particularly vulnerable to the growing intolerance in the period of the mid-17th century wars when, under the charge of collaborating with the Swedes, they were driven from Poland.
The social thought of the Polish Brethren was characterised by rationalist essentialism and an egalitarian tendency. They asked about the basic principles of a society diverse in social, cultural and religious terms. In the opinion of the brothers, contrary to the opinions of the majority of Poles and Europeans during the Thirty Years’ War and later conflicts, the cooperation of citizens in one country did not depend on jointly recognised metaphysical content. On the contrary, forced profession of such concepts fostered duplicity and hid the true problems of the country. It would therefore be better, as argued in Raków, if the civic sphere was based on natural and rational principles, which were recognisable, acceptable and applicable for all people, regardless of their deeper beliefs.
The ideological and religious differences gained a deliberative dimension, that is, they encouraged joint exploration of philosophical and theological concepts without coercion, sine ira et studio, in a “seminary” way. This approach is also visible, particularly in the debate on religious tolerance, in which the Polish Brethren defended the Confederation of Warsaw in 1572, ignoring, however, its character as a pragmatic political compromise and associating with it the general principles of civic equality. To some extent, they were already heralding Enlightenment thought, but insisted on the public dimension of pluralistic theological discourse, which set them apart from John Locke, who placed religion in the private sphere, as well as later French thinkers, who proclaimed the principle of a secular state.
Also present in Polish social philosophy were proponents of the neo-scholastic and later Jesuit Aristotelianism, inspired by the concept of the above-mentioned Spanish philosopher and theologian, Francisco Suárez. Polish neo-scholastics were not overly original compared to Europe, but they remained at a high level. At the very beginning of the 17th century, the Krakow Academy adopted a Thomic Aristotelianism of the old type, modelled on the medieval “first scholastic”. The model did not suit the needs of natural or mathematical sciences (in a time when in the West, Francis Bacon and his Novum organum revolutionised the model of these sciences in the spirit of modern times, and Pierre Gassendi shocked with his sensualist empiricism), or those of free metaphysical speculation, strictly connected with those science, which was practiced, for example, by Descartes. An alternative to such Thomism was the more modern Aristotelianism of Suárez (“the Second Scholastic”), taught at the Jesuit Academy of Vilnius, which in the first half of the 17th century went through a period of splendour and gathered many foreign professors. Part of the Jesuit network of schools were also centres in Kalisz, Lubartów, Lublin or Lviv. Considered here were the recent results of natural sciences, especially the astronomical models problematic for traditional Aristotelianism. Students read not only the canonical texts by Aristoteles and scholastics, but also Cicero to a large extent, previously mainly valued by humanists and rhetoricians. At the forefront of the 17th century tendency to engage in literature and science in national languages, the Vilnius Jesuits also published grammars and dictionaries of Baltic languages. The Polish philosopher who, representing this trend, gained the greatest fame both at home and abroad, was Marcin Śmiglecki (1536–1618), for a short time a direct student of Suárez, later a lecturer at the Academy of Vilnius, rector of the Catholic universities in Pułtusk, Poznań and Kalisz, and finally author of a cognitive theory textbook, highly valued for its orderliness and transparency (published in Ingolstadt and Oxford). In addition to the Jesuits, neo-scholasticism was also enriched by, among others, Dominican Samuel Wierzchoński (1589–1642), who published his works in Cologne on the Rhine, or Szymon Stanisław Makowski (d. 1683), who was connected with the Krakow Academy.
In addition to the strict schools, trends and confessions in the 17th century, there were also many independent thinkers. Competing with the Academy of Vilnius was Krakow mathematician, astronomer, rhetorician and philosopher Jan Brożek (1585–1652). He applied the current natural studies to traditional Aristotelian theory of knowledge and the art of eloquence. Brożek criticised the so-called Ramism, or the anti-Aristotelian rhetoric of French scholar Pierre de la Ramée (Petrus Ramus, 1515–1572), and the experiments of Valerianus Magnus (Valeriano Magni, 1586–1661), Italian Capuchin working mainly in Prague, but also in Poland. Magni search for a technical method of creating a vacuum, the existence of which would threaten the foundations of the Aristotelian system.
An important figure in Polish philosophy of the 17th century – who for obvious reasons is today better known in the Czech Republic – was Jan Amos Komeński (Czech Komenský, Lat. Comenius, 1592–1670). His ideal of comprehensive knowledge was associated with a holistic method, which left many traces in European culture, particularly in education: omnes omnia omnini (let everyone learn everything in every possible way). After the fall of the Bohemian revolt and the painful limitation of intellectual freedom in the country in 1620, Komeński spent, intermittently, nearly 30 years in exile in Leszno, writing his major works and interacting here and there with the Polish intellectual and public discourse, i.e. arguing from the point of view of mystically-rationalist metaphysics with the biased naturalistic rationalism of Raków.
We will not find scholars, who made a decisive contribution into the greatest projects of European philosophy in 17th century Poland. Spinoza’s thinking was weakly and rather reluctantly received (mainly in Raków). Descartes maintained contact with Poles (with Marcin Ruar, 1589–1657; later with Andrzej Wiszowaty, 1608–1678), but generally met with criticism (i.e. that of Jan Ludwik Wolzogen, 1599–1661). While in the West, ideas heralding the Enlightenment were formed, i.e. the liberal political philosophy of John Locke, based on empiricism, or the metaphysics of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz that favoured mathematical and natural innovations, the greatest obstacle in the development of Polish philosophy in this direction was the lack of appropriate institutions. Since the mid-17th century, there were significant intellectual centres, well-equipped financially, which were directly subject to absolute rulers on various levels of the hierarchy. In Poland, strong decentralising tendencies (noble democracy) did not allow for the creation of such centres.
Poles were well-represented in one pan-European structure, namely in the Republic of Letters. At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, Bartholomäus Keckerman (1572–1609) from Danzig, one of the more important intellectuals of the Commonwealth (although not in Polish, but in German), along with Johann Heinrich Alsted (1588–1638) and Johann Heinrich Biesterfeld (1605–1655), created a network of contacts, in which discussions took place beyond borders or religions, regardless of censorship bans. In the mid-17th century, this network reached Transylvania, which in the second half of the 17th century was an important cradle of Polish philosophy, and after 1650 became a refuge for humanists expelled from the Crown; Keckermann’s network was important for the development of European thought also thanks to its strong English affiliations. In his short life, Keckermann wrote several systematic representations of the strict sciences (mathematics, logic, astronomy, etc.) thus bringing a contribution to the later flowering of Enlightenment encyclopaedism. Also working in networks of this kind were the Racovians before emigration and after, maintaining extensive contacts with first-rate European philosophers, mainly French (Marin Mersenne, 1588–1648; Gassendi; probably Descartes). On the European scene, mainly English and German, also marked was the presence of Polish-Bohemian-German theologian, Daniel Ernst Jablonski (1660–1741), the grandson of the abovementioned great Bohemian émigré in Poland, Comenius. Like his grandfather and father, he led the Unity of the Brethren in Leszno, and then joined a Prussian court and co-founded the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Jablonsky is regarded as one of the most important organisers of intellectual life in Europe at the time. Thus, conventionally, he may be the last in a long – though by no means shown here in its entirety – list of Polish philosophers of the 17th century.
Translation: Lingua Lab
