In his philosophical commentary to the thought of Karl Marx, Leszek Kołakowski refers to his assimilation of G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophy. He pays particular attention to the swinging of Hegel’s theory ‘the right side up’ and standing him on a pair of feet instead of the head. Marx undertook the difficult task of ensuring a unity of man in a way quite different from the attempts made by either Kant or Hegel. They all wanted to abolish the contingency in human life, but in Marx’s thought the abolishing of the contingency is nothing else but a subjecting of a human being to his/her own existence. A man is no longer dependent on alienated forces that he has created himself, neither is he dependent on an anonymous society. Taking clue from Kołakowski we can say that exteriorisation of natural forces has replaced exteriorisation of consciousness and the Absolute Being of man is realized in his/her actual being.

This article is historical and philosophical in nature. Its purpose is to outline the most important trends and problems in the 19th-century Spanish philosophy. This philosophy has not yet been the subject of deeper analyses, especially in Polish literature on the subject. This is a major oversight, because the nineteenth century is the time of the impressive growth of modern social, political, legal, moral and intelectual structures in Spain. An important role in their development was played by Spanish philosophers and their reception of modern European philosophy and science. The reception was accompanied by numerous disputes and discussions about the condition of the Spanish culture and its possible development directions.