Abstract
The Polish philosopher Czesław Znamierowski (1888–1967) was perhaps not a pur sang phenomenologist; however, he was significantly inspired and influenced by Reinach’s A priori foundations of the civil law. In 1921, a few years before Gerda Walther, Edith Stein and Dietrich von Hildebrand, he started publishing articles and books on what he called “social ontology.” The social ontology which emerges from these writings, and which we sketch out in our essay, is remarkably similar to, and yet no less strikingly different from, the social ontologies of these phenomenological classics, the latter no doubt due to Znamierowski’s at times not quite accurate criticism of Reinach, but even more due to Znamierowski’s own acumen and unconfessedly phenomenological insightfulness. We explain his conceptual apparatus, his “social acts” and “social facts”, his “social bearing” and “social function”, and the rest of it; we also amply illustrate this with examples provided by Znamierowski himself and by ourselves. We try to show that Znamierowski in virtue of his method, the substance of his thought, and also his style, and not just in virtue of the influences he had absorbed, was a de facto phenomenologist, even though he did not call himself such. Last but not least, we attempt to demonstrate that Znamierowski’s social ontology is by and large correct and can be put to fruitful use even today, rather than be of merely historical interest.
This article is the result of joint research undertaken by the two authors. The final written version of Sects. 4.2, 4.5 and 4.7 can be attributed to Giuseppe Lorini, and that of Sects. 4.1, 4.3, 4.4 and 4.6 to Wojciech Żełaniec. Both authors consider themselves responsible for every word of their joint work.
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Notes
- 1.
On why “at least” see Salice (2013).
- 2.
Approximate pronunciation: CHESSwahff znahmyairOFFsky. IPA transcription (broad): [ˈt͡ʂɛswaf znamʲɛˈrɔfskʲi].
- 3.
Contributions on Znamierowski in English are very scarce. See e.g. Gidyński (1968); Czepita (1999); Lorini and Żełaniec (2013); Lorini and Żełaniec (forthcoming). In Poland, there is e.g. the biography by Marek Smolak in Smolak (2007).
- 4.
Much earlier, Alexander Skórski (1893), another Polish philosopher (suspected of having had some influence on Twardowski), wrote in some detail of social philosophy (“filozofia społeczna”) under this very name (we owe this reference to Prof. Venanzio Raspa of Urbino).
- 5.
Some maintain, however, that Znamierowski influenced—rather than be influenced by—the ethical views of that school by his stern objectivism and anti-emotivism, cf. Woleński (1989, 16).
- 6.
See e.g. Ziembiński (1976).
- 7.
In German, the term “Sozialontologie” first appeared in print in Theunissen (1965), with attribution to Husserl, but it was the later, transcendental Husserl whom we have no evidence Znamierowski had ever taken notice of. The term “social ontology” appears also in English in Gittler (1950) and in Italian in Recaséns Siches (1966, 230).
- 8.
At least in print. For, as we learn from Salice (2013, 219), Husserl used the expression “soziale Ontologie” in his manuscripts of 1910 (published in 1973 in Husserliana XIII), as a ἁπάξ λεγόμενον, and yet with a clear idea of what his “social ontology” should be: an eidetic and at the same time “material ontology investigating the species of social objects and [their] essential properties” (Salice 2013, 222).
- 9.
On this aspect of things see Lorini and Żełaniec (2013).
- 10.
In his Grammar of science of 1892, actually only the concept of a “routine of impressions” is being criticized as incompatible with a radical actualism, which Znamierowski imputes to Pearson. Cf. Znamierowski (1921, 5).
- 11.
See Groarke (2009, 26).
- 12.
- 13.
Znamierowski very explicitly adopts an “objectivist” (not in the sense of Ayn Rand) concept of possibility, i.e., while aware of its indeterminist and perhaps even antiscientific implications, he locates it on the part of the object. “Possible” is a property of reality itself, not of our notions of it, he tells us (Znamierowski 1921, 16). It is close to the Aristotelian δύναμις (Metaphysics IX).
- 14.
This metaphor appears in Buddhism (Shantaraksita, शान्तरक्षित), cf. Williams (2013, 20), but also in some Christian philosophers, e.g. William of Auvergne, cf. Moody (1975, 68). But metaphors apart, it is more than likely that Znamierowski received his idea of a merely concomitant (rather than a second-order one) self-perception from Brentano, where it plays quite a pivotal role (“innere Wahrnehmung,” “begleitendes Bewußtsein”) cf. e.g. Brentano (1995, passim).
- 15.
On the latter see Żełaniec (2003).
- 16.
Essay, II.XXVII.
- 17.
See Treatise, I.6.vi. See e.g. Traiger (1985).
- 18.
- 19.
He is then more explicit on environment and otoczenie (surroundings) of social action in Znamierowski (1924, 61 and 63).
- 20.
On external manifestations of social acts see Loddo (2011).
- 21.
Cf. article 4, on “[t]he act of moving the pieces,” of the FIDE rules of chess.
- 22.
Znamierowski (1921, 15).
- 23.
By way of an example: A non-living object, say a parcel (land lot), is no part of a society, but it can well be a socially relevant part of a society’s environment. The property or easement rights on this parcel are social relations amongst members of the relevant society, supported, as it were, by that parcel: had it not existed, they would not have existed, either (Znamierowski 1921, 7 and 15), and yet, the parcel does its supporting job from outside of the society in question.
- 24.
On Znamierowski’s social objects see Lorini (2000, 126–139).
- 25.
Znamierowski does not reject this assumption out of hand; on the contrary, he calls such a rejection “simplificationist.” However, he did not choose to get too deeply involved in debates in general ontology.
- 26.
On such systems in Znamierowski see Lorini and Żełaniec (forthcoming).
- 27.
Compare this with the Lockean “mixed modes,” cf. Lorini (2010).
- 28.
Reinach (1983, 19). Znamierowski is here being less than quite just to Reinach, as the latter explicitly admits that such social acts as the waiving of a claim, for instance, lack the moment of other-directedness (Reinach 1983, 32). This is certainly disputable, Reinach is saying in the same breath: “This waiving [of a claim resulting from a promise] is a social act whose addressee is the promisor” and the argument he adduces (for the non-other-directedness of claim-waiving) is controvertible. Yet the very fact that Reinach held it conceivable that there should be non-other-directed social acts proves Znamierowski wrong on the point in question. Thanks go to Alessandro Salice for calling our attention to this detail.
- 29.
- 30.
One wonders how Znamierowski would have reacted to the Voynich manuscript, which seems to have had some bearing, keeping scholars busy for over four centuries.
- 31.
- 32.
In seeing this, Znamierowski has arguably anticipated Searle’s language-free Status Function Declarations, see Searle (2010, 94ff).
- 33.
This—to qualify Znamierowski a bit—need not be unrestrictedly true of all religions. The Rev. Rabbi Stas Voytsekhovitch of the Jewish Community of Warsaw seems to be holding the view (oral communication) that that is not true of Judaism (where, he maintains, no non-social religious acts are possible).
- 34.
Or, for that matter, Peter Winch style.
- 35.
This is by itself not a mark of social character for Znamierowski, see Znamierowski (1921, 27): raising a dam in the bed of a deep bay by collectively pitching stones into the same area is not a social act and neither does it possess any social significance by itself. (The dam may, over time, acquire some social significance, without the action of raising it retroactively becoming social, let alone social per se).
- 36.
Here again an analogy with Reinach. Would telepathy count as social action in Znamierowski’s eyes? Though as befits a phenomenologist (even an anonymous one) he uses many examples, it is next to never that kind of examples, so we do not know.
- 37.
- 38.
We have done part of that work (on theticity and rule-created reality in Znamierowski, among other things) in Lorini and Żełaniec (2013) and in Lorini and Żełaniec (forthcoming), although there is still a great deal to be done.
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Lorini, G., Żełaniec, W. (2016). Czesław Znamierowski’s Social Ontology and Its Phenomenological Roots. In: Salice, A., Schmid, B. (eds) The Phenomenological Approach to Social Reality. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27692-2_4
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