What Exactly is Philology? Three Polish Treatises on Philology in Problematic and Formal Terms

Abstract

This article aims to analyse three Polish treatises on philology and to reconstruct the worldview of their authors on the scientific, didactic and social role of the discipline. They were written and published between 1814 and 1915; the authors were professors and members of scientific societies. The work O filologii czyli nauce starożytności klasycznej [On Philology or the Science of Classical Antiquity] by Jan Samuel Kaulfuss was written for teaching purposes. The synthetic and academically inspiring lecture by Jan Bołoz Antoniewicz Historia, filologia i historia sztuki [History, Philology and Art History] describes modern philology against the background of other sciences such as history, art history and philosophy. In turn, Filologia, jej zakres i zadania [Philology, Its Scope and Tasks], by Karol Appel is an apotheosis of philology; the author appreciates its importance for tradition and its cognitive value in the area of cultural memory, and predicts its long life in schools and universities. The philological way of writing the history of philology proposed in the present article makes it possible to show the richness and diversity of Polish scientific thought. The works under discussion clearly show the links with Western thought, but also the specificity resulting from the special situation of Poland under the partitions. The scientific issues contained in these works enrich our knowledge about the past of philology in various aspects: historical, scientific, social and didactic.