Dialogue and Universalism

Volume 19, Issue 3/5, 2009

2009: Year of the Meanings of Polish and European History: Freedom and Independence—True Open University Education — Self-Knowledge of Panhuman Universal Civilizations

The Unity of the Divided Mind. Some Remarks on Universalism in Connection with the Book by Eugeniusz Górski

Under the influence of today’s post-modern human sciences and their relativistic, skepticism-imbued theories the universalism idea, until recently the philosophical driving-force behind efforts to build a global human community based on universal principles of rationality, has lost much of its attractiveness to pluralism. However, despite the recognition that human rationality expresses itself in many different ways, strivings towards a universal human community have by no means ceased. Some take the form of political projects, others are more spontaneous and take place beyond both politics and philosophy. The present reflections on these strivings’ success chances go out from ideas formulated by Eugeniusz Górski in his study Civil Society, Pluralism and Universalism (Washington DC, Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2007).