Piotr Nowak - Böcker

The basic idea of this book is an attempt to describe and critically interpret the condition of man living in the shadow of the Shoah, in the world “after Jews”. The author achieves this by referring to the language of political theology, renewing the meaning of such theological concepts as eternity, salvation, the idea of the chosen people, apocalypse, radical hope, and others. He seeks an answer to the question of the conditions for the possibility of the Shoah, all this in order to better understand today’s growing aggression against people of strong faith, strong traditional beliefs. Is the disturbing thought of the recurrence of the Shoah, the repetition of the worst scenario that has already happened once in the modern world, an overstated thought, an exaggerated suspicion, a neurosis? The author asks several twentieth-century writers and philosophers such as René Girard, D.H. Lawrence, Jacob Taubes, Joseph Roth, Primo Levi, Jean Améry, W.G. Sebald, K.K. Baczyński, Czesław Miłosz, Krzysztof Michalski, Jonathan Lear, Hannah Arendt, Vasily Rozanov, Giorgio Agamben, and Martin Heidegger to answer these disturbing questions. The exceptions are William Shakespeare and St. Paul, who, however, can also be considered contemporary because of their timeless presence.

The basic idea of this book is an attempt to describe and critically interpret the condition of man living in the shadow of the Shoah, in the world “after Jews”. The author achieves this by referring to the language of political theology, renewing the meaning of such theological concepts as eternity, salvation, the idea of the chosen people, apocalypse, radical hope, and others. He seeks an answer to the question of the conditions for the possibility of the Shoah, all this in order to better understand today’s growing aggression against people of strong faith, strong traditional beliefs. Is the disturbing thought of the recurrence of the Shoah, the repetition of the worst scenario that has already happened once in the modern world, an overstated thought, an exaggerated suspicion, a neurosis? The author asks several twentieth-century writers and philosophers such as René Girard, D.H. Lawrence, Jacob Taubes, Joseph Roth, Primo Levi, Jean Améry, W.G. Sebald, K.K. Baczyński, Czesław Miłosz, Krzysztof Michalski, Jonathan Lear, Hannah Arendt, Vasily Rozanov, Giorgio Agamben, and Martin Heidegger to answer these disturbing questions. The exceptions are William Shakespeare and St. Paul, who, however, can also be considered contemporary because of their timeless presence.

The philosophical biography penned by the eminent Polish philosopher and translator Professor Piotr Nowak presents the difficult fate of Polish thinkers who reflected and created their philosophies in the 20th century—the century of three Polands, three wars, and two totalitarian regimes. Building his narrative around three key words, the author presents the lives and work of Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Tadeusz Kroński, Leszek Kołakowski, Andrzej Walicki, Adam Schaff, Bronisław Baczko, Krzysztof Pomian, Zbigniew Kuderowicz, Stefan Amsterdamski, Jerzy Szacki, Zygmunt Bauman, Jan Garewicz, Barbara Skarga, Juliusz Domański, Ryszard Legutko, Krzysztof Michalski, Marek J. Siemek, Józef Tischner, Roman Ingarden, Henryk Elzenberger, Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Kazimierz Adjunkiewicz, Marian Przełęcki, Bogusław Wolniewicz, Józef Maria Bocheński, Alfred Tarski, Leon Chwistek, and Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz. The book concludes with a transcript of a conversation between Zbigniew Janowski (an American philosopher of Polish descent) and the author of this book, discussing the influence of two powerful ideologies born in the 19th century, Marxism and liberalism, on the intellectual and political life of contemporary nations.