Poznawać czy myśleć – spór o rozumienie poznania filozoficznego w świetle studiów Mieczysława A. Krąpca

Abstract

The article concentrates on the specificity of philosophical cognition. Referring to M. A. Krapiec’s study, the author proves that the process of thinking is not to be necessarily identified with the process of cognition, as in fact the former is merely a secondary phase of the latter. When identified with thinking, the philosophical cognition would undermine the very sense of cognition, which means the understanding of reality. While based on thinking only, the philosophy does not grasp real things, but operates with abstracts of being and being’s representations (concepts). As for the correctness of philosophical thinking the laws of logic, with ensuring non-contradictory operations, are sufficient enough. However, any cognition, which aspires to be a philosophical one, has to come out from really existing beings. In the next phases of cognition, such beings are grasped more and more particularly and precisely – from their transcendental properties and principles, through their structure and categorial properties, until their individual characteristics and actions. The very first act of cognition is directed to real beings, which are immediately grasped in respect of their existence and real essence. The second act of cognition deals with signs. The being’s precedence in human cognition makes the philosophy charged not with a task of thinking about the world, but cognizing and understanding it within possible and verifiable limits. Therefore, according to Krapiec, the very first philosophical discipline is metaphysics, which has got real beings as its object. Thus, the philosophical cognition should preserve its objective character, as it is the only way to guarantee its realism.