Pisarstwo filozofów jako świadectwo pamięci. Próba rozpoznania

Abstract

The paper is an attempt to examine how the writings of philosophers – especially their non-academic essays – are testimonies of memory. The issue is discussed with reference to the texts by Leszek Kołakowski, Barbara Skarga, Józef Tischner and Antoni Kępiński, a philosophizing psychiatrist. These texts are not only testimonies of the authors’ individual experiences, but also reveal their attitudes towards the philosophical discourse. However, the relationship between philosophy and memory is problematic because the philosophical discourse shows a tendency to generalize, is discursively conditioned, and because of problems with the articulation of an experience. Philosophical writing can also be seen as a specific form of collective memory, the memory of discourse resulting from its intertextuality.