Professor Juliusz Domański, a renowned classical scholar and neo‑Latinist, has published Wykłady o humanizmie („Lectures on humanism”, 2020). He starts from Plato and makes Erasmus of Rotterdam the terminal point of his intellectual voyage. This itinerary comprises the story of the conflict between philosophy and liberal arts concerning the question how poetry is to be taught. Platonic objections against poets met with eager welcome in Christianity. Yet even in the Middle Ages scholars remained devoted to the study of the ancient literature, although the dominant model of education was at that time more and more resolutely ‘scientific’. The goal of education was defined as developing astute abilities in specific ‘arts’ ( artes) rather than studying classical ‘authors’ ( auctores). In order to understand different views on the relation between philosophy and poetry I recall Bogusław Wolniewicz’s remark that human activities can be developed in four different fields: naturalistic rationalism, metaphysical rationalism, naturalistic irrationalism and metaphysical irrationalism.

The published text contains a lecture given at a sitting of the Poznań Chapter of the Polish Historical Society as well as answers to questions posed afterwards, coming from history students of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, who constituted the majority of the audience. The lecture was based on the initial question: “what perception of the University did you imbibe in your family home, how did you later confront this with your own practice of the University, how do you look at it from the perspective of the experience being your own and from observing the changes taking place”. Following on from this, it is divided into two main parts. The first presents the author's university experience, rooted in family tradition and then personally gained from the start of his academic studies at AMU in 1967. The second is a critical reflection on the current condition of universities in Poland. It draws abundantly on statements on the subject by prominent representatives of Polish science.