Stefan Zachariasz Pawlicki

The chapter presents Stefan Zachariasz Pawlicki as one of the more important Polish philosophers and apologists of the second half of the nineteenth century. His scholarly activity developed in confrontation with positivism, materialism, evolutionism, and the rapid growth of the natural sciences. Pawlicki did not merely reject new theories but sought to evaluate them critically and integrate legitimate scientific insights into a Christian understanding of reality. The relationship between faith and reason, as well as between religion, philosophy, and science, occupies a central place in his thought. The chapter portrays him as a thinker attempting to formulate a modern model of apologetics that employed critical scholarship in the rational defence of faith.