(Nie)pewność

Ewa Laskowska; Piotr Jedynak; Aneta Gawkowska; Bogdan Szlachta; Jolanta Dudek; Teresa Grabińska; Dariusz Radziechowski; Włodzimierz Wołyniec; Rafał Prostak

doi:10.15633/9788383701677

(Un)certainty

Authors

Ewa Laskowska (ed)

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5924-0506

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15633/9788383701677

Keywords:

certainty, faith, John Paul II, modernity, reason, uncertainty

Synopsis

The volume “(Un)certainty” edited by Ewa Laskowska brings together contributions by Piotr Jedynak, Aneta Gawkowska, Bogdan Szlachta, Jolanta Dudek, Teresa Grabińska, Dariusz Radziechowski, Włodzimierz Wołyniec, and Rafał Prostak, written for the 2025 John Paul II Days. The volume examines the tension between certainty and uncertainty as a defining experience of late modernity and investigates its manifestations in cognition, science, politics, law, faith, literature, and freedom, with the thought of Karol Wojtyła/John Paul II serving as its principal frame of reference. Its interdisciplinary methodology combines philosophical and theological analysis, hermeneutic readings of papal texts, literary interpretation, semantic and logical analysis, and a critical synthesis of findings from sociology, political science, legal theory, and epistemology. The studies show that the modern pursuit of certain knowledge and complete control paradoxically intensifies risk, anxiety, and loss of agency; politics and law remain conflictual spheres in which the dignity and rights of the human person should provide a durable normative reference; and the increasing reliability of scientific and protoscientific knowledge based on computer simulations does not by itself provide existential meaning without axiological grounding. The analyses of faith demonstrate that its certainty, rooted in God’s authority, coexists with cognitive obscurity arising from the inadequacy of human cognition before mystery. The interpretation of Wojtyła’s poetry presents Redemption as a response to cognitive and existential disquiet, while the discussion of freedom shows that authentic self-determination does not eliminate uncertainty but entails risk, responsibility, and an orientation towards truth. Taken together, these perspectives lead to the conclusion that uncertainty is not merely a deficit of knowledge but a constitutive and potentially creative horizon of human cognition, decision-making, and faith; it can be lived constructively through the integration of reason, trust, values, and love.