Abstract

Leszek Kolakowski is fast becoming notorious for suggesting that contemporary philosophy has inherited its central problems from theological roots. Thus the questions that concern us today are essentially the same as those of our precursors, only couched in a different language. Kolakowski's intent in putting forth this notion is not to insist on the redundancy of the questions but to underscore the fundamental continuity that grounds their historical appearance, a continuity based on the fact that in each case the questions arise out of the same situation — the effort to understand and articulate man's response to the world in which he finds himself. Kolakowski's polemical purpose is to combat the enlightened person's scorn of problems that preoccupied past ages.