The Method of Karol WojtyłA: A Way Between Phenomenology, Personalism And Methaphysics

Abstract

Karol Wojtyła attempted, with his philosophy, to unify the philosophies of being and of consciousness in the field of anthropology and ethics. For that matter he has used a philosophical method similar to the phenomenological method with which he seeks to achieve an ontological access to reality. This text analyzes the characteristics of this method by showing: (1) the method is very close to the one applied by the realistic branch of phenomenology but differs in some significant issues such as its radical realism which can be materialized in the non-use of the epochè and its ontological claim; (2) the method is close, in its presumption, to Aristotelian-Thomistic gnoseology but also differs in substantial issues such as the assertion that intelligence directly grasps the singular. The analysis shows, therefore, that Wojtyła’s method is original and thus, it can establish, from its gnoseological premises, a connection with ontology and, to some extent, with metaphysics, while the latter is more complex and it is not completely solved, as shows the problem of suppositum