To Tame and Pacify: Political Aims of the Philosophy of Peace in Post-war Poland

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The paper seeks to clarify the political goals of promoting the “philosophy of peace” in post-war Poland under communist rule in order to assess its credibility for the present. PROBLEM AND RESEARCH METHODS: Contemporary academic textbooks devoted to the “philosophy of security” reproduce the interpretative patterns found in scientific analyzes of the “philosophy of peace” from the communist era. By proclaiming the unconditional priority of security for contemporary man, they provide no justification for this thesis. Using the contextualization method, what they consider universal is verified here by confronting the circumstances of the era in which it arose. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The paper reminds the most important conditions of Polish statehood subordinated to an external superpower after World War II. It discusses the possible social roles of scholars within the system of political repression. In this context, it analyzes the intellectual biography of the most important classic, to whom contemporary authors in the field of the philosophy of security refer. RESEARCH RESULTS: The analysis proves the explicitly profiled social role of the classic within the system of state subordination and lack of national sovereignty. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The reproduction of interpretative patterns taken for granted from similar works should therefore be considered scientifically unreliable in the conditions of political and scientific freedom.