Irena Krońska: A Student and a Critic of Roman Ingarden’s Philosophy

Abstract

In this article on Irena Krońska (1915–1973) I attempt to present three stages in her approach towards the philosophy of Roman Ingarden. The first one may be associated with her review in Revue philosophique de France et de l’étranger of 1949, printed following the publication of the Controversy over the Existence of the World, Volume 1. The second one encompasses the period up to 1968 when Krońska was cooperating with Ingarden. The third one covers the period after Ingarden’s death in 1970 and provides an assessment of his work, largely in the framework of correspondence between Krońska and Patočka. I maintain that Krońska was consistent in her criticism, voiced from the perspective of Phenomenology, inasmuch as she disapproved of Ingarden’s ontologicism and sense of “positivism” that was in his removedness and lack of ethic-existential content which for Krońska constituted the essence of philosophy.