Professor of KUL

 

 

The core of my philosophical education comes from the Department of Philosophy, Catholic University of Lublin (MA 1986, PhD 1993, Hab. 2003). However, thanks to various grants and scholarships I had a chance to visit, for longer or shorter periods of time, many philosophical centers in the world, including the Department of Philosophy at Cambridge University in 1995 (British Council Fellowship and Cambridge Hospitality Scheme Award) or the Department of Philosophy at Notre Dame University in 1996/97 (Fulbright Senior Research Grant). Recently (2010) I visited for a month the Department of Philosophy at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

The main topic of my research is the history of modern and contemporary philosophy in the English speaking world, especially in Great Britain and in the USA. My publications (books and articles) concern mainly: British philosophers of 18th century (David Hume, Thomas Reid), British Analytic Philosophy at the close of 20th century, American Process Philosophy (Whitehead and Hartshorne), Pragmatism (Peirce, James, and Dewey), and Neopragmatism. At present I prepare longer book on William James’ psychology and philosophy. After finishing this project I plan to do some work on methodology of history of philosophy.

I teach various courses in the history of contemporary philosophy. Students who selected me as their BA or MA advisor write on various topics of 20th century philosophy. My PhD students undertake topics both in modern and in contemporary philosophy. Five students already finished and defended their PhD dissertations and  the sixth one is about to do it this year. Exemplary subjects are: “The Nature and Identity of Person in J. Locke”, “The Problem of Existence in G. Berkeley’s Philosophy”, “Practical Philosophy of Martha Nussbaum” “The Three Strategies of Dealing with Relativism: R. Rorty, A. MacIntyre, and P. Bogossian”.

I want my students to be good philosophers before they start to write on history of philosophy. Good knowledge and technical skills in philosophy are as important for historian of philosophy as  knowledge of languages and research methods in history. I pay also much attention on the necessity of detailed definitions of interpretative categories that are used by historian of philosophy, even those that appear to be unproblematic (like e.g. “relativism”).  This conviction I share with my great prodecessors at the Chair of History of Modern and Contemporary philosophy, prof. Stefan Swieżawski (world authority in history of 15th century philosophy), and prof. Jan Czerkawski (historian of 16th and 17th century philosophy).

Teaching is only one aspect of my university life. I fulfill also some other functions, among others of a director of the College of Interfaculty Individual Studies in the Humanities (something like Honors programs in USA universities), at the Catholic University of Lublin, and a member of the Philosophical Committee of Polish Academy of Sciences.