Tadeusz H. Czeżowski and Henryk M. Elzenberg: The Toruń School of Analytical Axiology

Abstract

The article reconstructs the origins, distinctive character, and continuity of the Toruń centre for axiological studies formed after 1945 around Tadeusz Czeżowski and Henryk Elzenberg. It also justifies the designation “Toruń School of Analytical Axiology”, understood not as the name of a unified doctrine but as referring to a shared field of problems, methods, and institutional practices. This common ground was defined by the conviction that values are objective and cognizable, by the aspiration to provide a rational account of the foundations of value judgements, oughts, and norms, and by a commitment to analytical rigour. The article presents the principal similarities and differences between the two philosophers’ conceptions of the ontology and epistemology of value, the theory of norms, and the normative foundations of ethics. It also discusses the development of their published work, its posthumous editions, the most important translations, and its presence in international scholarly circulation. Particular attention is given to the personal and intellectual continuity of the Toruń axiological tradition and to its successive continuators. The final part characterizes the source texts and interpretative studies collected in the present issue of Ruch Filozoficzny. The publication of English translations of works by Czeżowski and Elzenberg, accompanied by contemporary scholarly studies, is intended to broaden the international reception of their philosophy and to provide a basis for further research on its significance for contemporary value theory, ethics, and philosophical anthropology.