On culture, morality and spirituality in Anna Teresa Tymieniecka’s philosophy

Abstract

The aim of this article is to introduce the basic points of philosophy of Anna Teresa Tymieniecka, as well as some of the main categories of her metaphysical system. The system is built on the thesis that “the Universe is the unity of everything that is alive”, and there is no ontic foundation that we should look up to whilst trying to understand why “is there something rather than nothing”. This assumption is tied to the main idea of Tymieniecka’s philosophy − onto-poiesis, which puts creative act in the center of metaphysics, and defines reality as “unity in creation”. The core of Tymieniecka’s philosophy will be described in this article in relation to selected categories of acts of uniquely human activity in reality – such as culture, morality and spirituality.

The article is divided into several parts. The first one presents biography of Anna Teresa Tymieniecka, and describes the main ideas of her philosophy. The second part shows Tymieniecka’s critical views on eidetic and transcendental phenomenology, and distinguishes creative and constitutive acts of human consciousness. Later on, the role of human culture in the onto-poiesis of life, and also the concept of morality will both be described. The last part concerns the spirituality of a human being, as well as they desire to move towards transcendence.

The metaphysical system of Anna Teresa Tymieniecka combines several aspects of reality and human activity, and describes the nature of totality of human being as both spiritual and bodily, without the scientific reduction.