Krzysztof Piotr Skowroński

My Personal Reasons to Talk about Confucius

I remember well that I read The Analects first when I was thirteen. I found a translation into my native language in my sister’s library. I liked it so much that I would rewrite some of its fragments and learnt them by heart. The fascination lasted for some time until started to read Greek philosophers. The second reason is a bit strange, given my professional interest in American pragmatism. What’s the connection between American pragmatism and Chinese Confucianism? Namely, one of its most eminent representatives, John Dewey, visited China in 1919-1920 and earned popularity to such an extent that some called him ‘Second Confucius’. It is interesting to read many materials that compare these two, on moral education for example. And I was even a reviewer of a PhD dissertation on it at the university of Malaga, Spain. And the fourth reason refers to my Chinese students. I give university courses to Continental Chinese students in English. Rhetoric and Persuasion most often. It is interesting to see the cultural difference between the Chinese and the Western way of communicating. English is an issue, but it is not that problematic as a different mentality. To reduce the cultural shock, I turn to the Confucian tradition. It helps understand many things.

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Books that Stand the Test of Time

I talk about books that have stood the test of time. Books that can be useful for people living in the 21^st century. I do not talk to experts, professors, historian of philosophy. My target audiences are those who look for some practical pieces of advice. Or for some refection from such books. The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is such a book. For example, many contemporary books, texts, podcasts, blogs, and vlogs refer to it. Even a contemporary movement, Modern Stoicism, has appeared and gains popularity.

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Through a somewhat surrealistic literary language, Gombrowicz’s Ferdydurke (a title that means practically nothing) presents a concept of human life; secular, social, intellectually creative and also existentially disoriented. It places it among the dominant cultural powers according to a mechanism of formation and deformation. What does that mean? Every structure of human life, individual or corporeal, both established and developing, manifests itself with the help of speech, the use of symbols, in reference to the values it respects, that is, through its Form, according to Gombrowicz’s vocabulary. By maintaining his Form, he fights for a position in the socio-political hierarchy for recognition, also for fame and for the power to influence others.

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