On the ‘Superiority’ of Giordano Bruno over Benedict de Spinoza, or On the Rapport AndrzejNowicki – Leszek Kołakowski. An Introduction to an Essay about ‘Parallel Lives’’

Abstract

Many of the protagonists of the “Warsaw school of the historians of ideas” are overshadowed today by the personality and work of Leszek Kołakowski. The author demonstrates that there were figures equal to Kołakowski, and perhaps more significant intellectually and culturally. He recalls Andrzej Nowicki as a thinker capable of competing with Kołakowski and worthy of being presented in a “parallel biography”, juxtaposing their vicissitudes and views in Poland after 1945.