The Philosophy of Ancient Greece in the Works of Władysław Tatarkiewicz until 1947 - an Outline

Abstract

Władysław Tatarkiewicz was a Polish scholar, a historian of philosophy, and a philosopher, who studied ancient Greek philosophy throughout his entire research career. His writings in the field of the history of philosophy allow us to conclude that he considered ancient philosophy to be {the foundation of…?}a foundation of European philosophy, which does not seem surprising. Furthermore, his original philosophical works indicate that the investigations of ancient Greeks were his major inspiration. The aim of this article is to provide an outline of those of Tatarkiewicz’s pre-1947 works in which Greek philosophy was explored by him as a topic of his historical research or used as the source of his original philosophical reflection. The analysis of Tatarkiewicz’s works that were focused on Greek philosophy is set in the context of previous research on Tatarkiewicz’s methodology, which allows us to give a preliminary answer to the question of the significance of ancient Greek philosophy for his philosophical development.