For a new cognitive model of the humanities – the Poznań methodological school (part I)

Abstract

The Poznan School of Methodology is a research formation operating at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, from the mid-1960s until 1973, whose founders were J. Kmita, L. Nowak and J. Topolski. It developed an original naturalistic and anti-positivist methodological model of the humanities, which, while assuming the methodological unity of the humanities and natural sciences, at the same time defines the methodological specificity of the humanities. It results from the use of deductive scientific explanation called humanistic interpretation in the research practice of humanists. Between 1970 and 1973, Marxist methodology was practised. It was discovered that the original Marxist research method was the procedure of idealisation and concretisation. This period was followed by the disintegration of the Poznan School of Methodology as a research group with common theoretical assumptions. The originality and innovative character of its analyses and scientific findings gained it considerable fame in the world of science, but it also became the subject of lively debates, discussions, polemics and fierce disputes, of which the published reviews are a historical testimony today.