Wisława Szymborska – On Anthropocentrism with Moderation Cover Image

Wisława Szymborska – o antropocentryzmie bez przesady
Wisława Szymborska – On Anthropocentrism with Moderation

Author(s): Stanisław Balbus
Subject(s): Metaphysics, Epistemology, Polish Literature, Ontology
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: Wisława Szymborska; anthropocentrism; otherness; epiphany;

Summary/Abstract: Wisława Szymborska often referred to the idea of anthropocentrism with an ironic distance and scepticism, seeing it as an expression of human pride and humanistic usurpation. The author discusses this theme of Szymborska’s writing on the example of two poems: Rozmowa z kamieniem (Conversation with a Stone) and Widok z ziarnkiem piasku (A View with a Grain of Sand). He points at philosophic trains of thought contained in them, polemical towards the tradition of Western metaphysics and epistemology, focusing also on the question of the linguistic inaccessibility of the essence of the non-human world.

  • Issue Year: 2016
  • Issue No: 29
  • Page Range: 15-26
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: Polish