Stanisław Lisiecki and Platonic Concept of “the Transmigration of Souls”

Abstract

Stanisław Lisieckiʼs is an almost completely forgotten Plato researcher. He published Nauka Platona o prabycie duszy [Plato’s Doctrine on the Pre-Existence of the soul] in 1927. Lisiecki in this book presented his interpretation and assessment of Plato’s theory of reincarnation. This book is the main source of the article, which allows to juxtapose Lisiecki’s position with the those of then Polish reincarnation researchers, that is, Wincenty Lutosławski and Paweł Siwek. In his texts on reincarnation (1935, 1937), Siwek clearly referred to Lutosławskiʼs Nieśmiertelność duszy [Immortality of the Soul] (1925), but he completely ignored Lisieckiʼs work. The aim of the article is to present Lisieckiʼs interpretation and assessment of Plato’s concept of metempsychosis, and then place his work against the background of contrary results of Lutosławski and Siwek. Lisieckiʼs reflection on Plato, and especially on his theory of reincarnation, proves that Lisiecki was an unfairly forgotten scholar, who had an enviable abilities of a historian of philosophy, due to he had knowledge and abilities, as well as diligence that predestined to take a place in Polish historiography and reception of Greek philosophy.