Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka’s Phenomenology of Life

Abstract

Born in Marianowo Poland into a family that was a part of Poland’s landed nobility, as a high school student A.-T. Tymieniecka’s was first introduced to philosophy through readings and discussions of Kazimierz Twardowski’s Der Gegenstand der Vorstellung, a work recommended to her by the local philosopher Wladyslaw Horkawy. Horkawy had been a student of Twardowski’s at Lwow, and Twardowski had been a student of Husserl. (Tymieniecka, 1989, 180–181), Profoundly impressed by Horkawy’s commitment to Husserlian themes, particularly his emphasis upon the absolute objectivity of the principles of justice and morals, Tymieniecka entered Roman Ingarden’s seminar at the University of Kraków and was initiated into the Husserlian phenomenological tradition. In Ingarden, she discovered both a congenial philosophy and close intellectual friendship that continued until his death. She studied with Ingarden at Kraków from 1945 to 1947. At Krakow, she also studied logic with Zawirski and Ajdukiewicz and befriended Alfred Tarski (Tymieniecka, 1989, 182–184).