It is important to situate that present volume as part of a project in Eastern Europe begun by the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy in the mid 1970s. In the general conferences of the International Society for Metaphysics, it became manifest that real progress in philosophy in Central and Eastern Europe would require extended and in-depth discussion between philosophers with diverse methodologies, insights and experiences. As a result, during the 1970s and 1980s ten joint colloquia were organized with the Philosophy Institutes of the Academies of Science of Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Lithuania and the USSR, each with the participation of six philosophers from other parts of the world. The topics themselves were important: person and action, rationality and historicity, morality and the political order. But in each case, once a topic was opened, the discussions ranged broadly and deeply, gravitating to the foundational issues of human dignity and sociality. They were rare occasions to encounter and test at length truly different philosophical orientations in rigorously scientific discussion, and with a sense of cooperating in the common human search.

Horizons were opened, seeds of transformation were planted, the harvest, when it came in 1989, was sudden and dramatic. It opened great new possibilities, but offered little direction and even less coordination. In these circumstances it appeared that a first philosophical step in rebuilding the social life of the region was for the different peoples to retrieve the resources of their traditions long submerged under a rationalist universalism. To look back, however, could not mean simply a nostalgic lethargy, for too much needed to be done in circumstances of great change. Consequently, a joint project was set, linking the research oriented philosophy institutes in the region and focused on the theme: Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change: Foundations for Social Life.

The major academies and university centers each undertook to specify their own sub-topic under this broad rubric according to the needs of its people and the combinations of competencies and research of its scholars. In a period of great turmoil and disorientation, this project provided a concrete way of taking the first step, namely, to reappropriate the deeply humanizing and religious resources of their cultures, to reflect deeply on how these had been submerged, to inventory the competencies in philosophy which could be drawn upon, and to begin to reformulate the issues.

Representatives of the different teams met for mutual critique of their drafts volumes, which were then revised. The results of this first phase of the cooperative effort by philosophers of Central and Eastern Europe have been published as a series of eight volumes, each from the Philosophy Institute of a different Academy of Science or University in the region. Each volume tells part of an heroic history and a courageous response perhaps most manifest in this present volume from Poland. It has been proceeded by two other Polish volumes in this series.

The first is The Philosophy of Person: Solidarity and Cultural Creativity, itself an historic work. Indeed, from some points of view and in retrospect, it was the crucial philosophical move in ending the ideological hegemony of communism.

In order to appreciate this it is important to note that by 1978 the Polish philosophers in Krakow, led by Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, had interwoven the classical Christian philosophy of Thomas Aquinas with the phenomenology of Roman Ingarden to form a contemporary philosophy of the person and its implications for human solidarity. This philosophical anthropology had been worked out as an intentional alternative to the heavy weight of Marxist ideology. But even before it confronted the Marxists it was already under attack from the more traditionalist scholastic philosophers of Lublin. Was this philosophical anthropology truly ready then to challenge the ruling ideology?

In these circumstances The World Union of Catholic Philosophical Societies worked with Cardinal Wojtyla to convoke a meeting of 60 philosophers from other countries with an equal number from the two camps of Catholic philosophers in Poland. Its purpose was to test out the new philosophy of person and solidarity and to provide what was to be its final tuning before it squarely confronted the megasystem which Gorbachev in 1992 would describe as having spread "everywhere social strife, animosity and unparalleled brutality." The contents of that meeting were published in Krakow in 1980 in samizdat form under the title The Human Persona and Philosophy in the Contemporary World (in this series its title is The Philosophy of Person).

Its effects were quick to follow. Within three months, largely because of this philosophical vision, the Roman Church in a most dramatic move elected Cardinal Wojtyla of Krakow as the first non-Italian Pope in over 400 years. Not incidentally, the next time there was a labor dispute in Poland it was played by this book. That is, in view of the dignity of the human person and the nature of human sociality articulated in final form in this work no government offer or compromise was acceptable unless worked out with the participation of the persons involved. In these terms Solidarnoz took flesh, first as a labor movement, but very soon as a movement of the entire people spreading from the cities across the countryside. Against this, suppression proved ultimately futile; all moved inexorably toward the first free election in Central and Eastern Europe in August, 1989.

Providentially, as dawn broke on the first day of freedom for Eastern Europe the morning after this election, a team of social scientists from The Catholic University of America stepped gingerly out of the rail station in Lublin and swung up onto the bus to join their peers from the Catholic University there for a conference on Public and Private Social Inventions in Modern Societies.

During these sessions the results of the election -- the historic sweep by Solidarity -- were coming in, and by the end of the conference it was clear that once again there would in fact be room for a private sector in Polish life. Indeed, the challenge which suddenly had burst upon Poland was not how to reconstitute an unrealizable socialist utopia (perestroika), but how to develop a convergence of private initiatives in family, education, religion, economics and politics for a public effect. By the end of that very year the Polish lead had been followed throughout the entire region as civil society became the new watchword for the redevelopment of central and Eastern Europe.

The present volume goes more deeply into this story. For it was not by accident that Poland was able to lead all to countries of the region to freedom. For centuries, much of its under the foreign occupation, the Polish people had not only kept their own identity but saw themselves as striving for all: "for our freedom and yours".

This volume is the story of that heritage. As the preface and Chapter I by Professor Leon Dyczewski, OFM, will introduce the volume at length there remains here but to note that this great tribute to the Polish people and its culture is the work of a devoted team of scholars he assembled and coordinated at the Catholic University of Lublin. It reaches deeply into the Polish Spirit, which for centuries replaced the state and repeatedly brought the Polish nation through to national rebirth and renewal. That Spirit has been embodied also in the working as well as in the output of this team. The biographical sketches below provide details on each member.

The arduous work of translation was borne by Marek Chojnaski, supported by St. Mary’s College, Orchad Lake, Michigan, under its President, Thad Radzilowski. The manuscript has been read and edited by Nancy Graham, Sophie M. Peters and John Kromkowski. Hu Yeping completed the final preparation and typesetting of the manuscript which, Zhu Fenghua and Zhao Hui have brought through to completion.

Deep gratitude is extended to all who have cooperated in this effort to share some of the treasure and the drama of Polish culture.