“Little Hopes Make Miserable Meetings”. Józef Tischner's Philosophy of Hope

Abstract

The paper presents personality and thought of Polish philosopher and priest — Jozef Tischner, who was a spiritual leader of «Solidarność» — the social, liberation movement in the 1980-s in Poland. The main subject of the paper is the philosophy of hope, which (hope) Tischner strongly connects with the human feeling of freedom. Tischner's thought is based on the works by Antoni Kęmpiński — polish psychiatrist, who after The Second World War worked with former concentration camps prisoners. Tischner gave the philosophical interpretation to psychiatric works, focusing on the schizophrenic illness as a «ideal type» of the pathology of hope. The basic thesis of the paper is following: there is a significant correlation between the «quality» of human hope and the «quality» of meetings between man and man.