On idealism and realism by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz – a short history of editorial investigation

Abstract

The article is an attempt to solve two textological-editorial mysteries concerning a treatise by Witkiewicz entitled On idealism and realism, written in 1933 – the first mystery concerns the edition itself, whereas the other is related to Witkacy’s unknown, mysterious missing treatise by Witkacy. The work On idealism and realism first appeared in “Zet” journal in 1935 (it was published in episodes). Post-war editions differ greatly from the original (the differences turned out to be so serious that it gave grounds to suspicions of the existence of two original texts). The treatise, printed for the second time in “Przegląd Filozoficzny” in 1946 (entitled Idealism and realism), lacks the ending of part VII, the whole part VIII entitled Remarks regarding the origins of conceptual realism in our times and an Appendix Special problems of existence, but closely related to general ones. Another removed element were nine postscripts by the author, which can be found both in the surviving typescript and in the first printing. The edition form 1946 also contains numerous changes within the text itself. They mostly boiled down to removing whole sentences or their fragments (mainly appositions and interjections in parentheses), which is evidence for deep interference into the text. 

The edition from 1946, on which subsequent editions are based, was published shortly after the war. The third issue of the quarterly submitted for printing in 1939, in which Witkacy’s treatise was to appear, burnt in the printing office at the beginning of the war, and the surviving editor’s copy burnt in 1944 in the flat belonging to editorial office’s secretary. After the war, editors, being unable to reconstruct the issue, decided to publish other texts of the same authors, with Idealism and realism among them, on the basis of “surviving manuscript” – it remains unknown what happened to it. The only preserved typescript is identical to the edition published in “Zet” journal, which was the first printing. It is not completely clear whether it was decided after the war to reedit the treatise, or another authorial version was used, different from the originally published one.