Bogusław Wolniewicz

Wolniewicz was a professor at University of Warsaw from 1963 to 1998. In scholarly circles he is known as a translator and commentator of Ludwig Wittgenstein.[1]

In 1997 he retired, but he continued giving lectures – however, in 1998 The Scientific Council of the Department of Philosophy and Sociology at the University of Warsaw didn't extend his job contract.[6]

From the 1990s, he became a publicist mostly affiliated with the Radio Maryja community.[1] Wolniewicz was notorious for his controversial views, seen as homophobic, anti-feminist, anti-semitic, and islamophobic.[1][2][7][8][5]

He stated on TV that gays should not go public and that the Jewish holiday of Sukkot should not be celebrated in public in Poland.[5] In 2008, Wolniewicz addressed a packed crowd at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Krakow and shouted "The Jews are attacking us! We need to defend ourselves", in an event protesting against the Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz book and alongside Jerzy Robert Nowak.[9][10][11][12] The Council of Media Ethics stated that his on-air comments in January 2009 contained anti-semitic views and violated "the basic ethical norms and Polish law".[13][14][15][16][2] Wolniewicz considered Islam as a harbinger of Asian expansion, and preached that migration and terror were "weapons" in the hands of Islamists. He called for the sinking of boats with immigrants.[1][2]

Wolniewicz considered feminism to be against human nature, supported euthanasia, and considered the abolition of capital punishment to be a sign of moral decline in Europe. He spoke against Smolensk air disaster conspiracy theories.[1] Wolniewicz was opposed to genetic engineering and in particular to embryo cloning which he saw as "Mengelism".[17][18] He objected to Organ transplantation viewing it as a form of Cannibalism.[19][20]

In 2004 he criticized the conditions of accepting Poland into European Union. During the 2005 parliamentary election he unsuccessfully stood as a candidate to Sejm under Janusz Korwin-Mikke Platform in an electoral district outside of Warsaw.[21]

Later into 2007 he got involved in an event initiated by Jerzy Robert Nowak, a professor at the University of Social and Medial Culture against the book Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz by Jan Tomasz Gross that describes the Polish-Jewish relations during World War Two. Wolniewicz participated in several meetings where he heavily criticized Gross’ book.[22]

In 2009 he entered The Committee for Defense of the Good Name of Poland and Poles initiated by Jerzy Robert Nowak. From 2014 he prepared lectures on subjects such as Islam, ethics and philosophy for the Rational Voice channel[23] on YouTube.

By a decision of president Aleksander Kwaśniewski on November 11, 1997, „for outstanding contribution to the Polish science”, he was awarded with an Officer's Cross of Polonia Restituta.[24]

Son of Henryk. Was a self-declared nonbeliever (identifying as „Roman catholic – nonbeliever”).[25]

He died on August 4, 2017, few weeks prior to his 90th birthday. On August 9, at the St. Andrzej Bobola church in Warsaw, a funeral service took place in honor of the professor, led by father Andrzej Spławski.[26]

• Introduction to philosophy: supporting materials, together with Józef Grudzień, Warsaw, National School Publishing Press, 1961.
• Things and facts. Introduction to Ludwik Wittgenstein’s first philosophy (including an excerpt from Plato’s „Theaetetus” in a new translation and with a commentary by Professor Henryk Elzenberg), Warsaw, National Science Publishing, 1968.
• Situational Ontology: basics and applications, Warsaw, National Science Publishing, 1985.
• Philosophy and values: discourses and statements: with excerpts from writings of Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Warsaw, Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology at the University of Warsaw, 1993.
• Philosophy and values 2, Warsaw, Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology at the University of Warsaw, 1998.
• Logic and metaphysics: studies in Wittgenstein’s ontology of facts, Warsaw, „Sign, Language, Reality”, Polish Semiotic Society, 1999.
• Philosophy and values 3, With an excerpt from „Book of tragedy” by Henryk Elzenberg and his remarks on „Philosophical Investigations” by Wittgenstein, Warsaw, Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology at the University of Warsaw, 2003.
• Xenophobia and community, together with Zbigniew Musiał, Kraków, Arcana, 2003.
• Three trends: rationalism – antirationalism – scientism, together with Zbigniew Musiał and Janusz Skarbek, Warsaw, Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology at the University of Warsaw, 2006.
• On Poland and life: philosophical and political reflection, Komorów, Antyk – Marcin Dybowski, 2011.
• Philosophy and values 4, Warsaw, University of Warsaw, 2016.