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Kvirin Vasilj’s Philosophy as a “Philosophy of Life”
Draženko Tomić
; Učiteljski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu
Sažetak
The paper examines the fundamental philosophical topics of the Franciscan Kvirin Vasilj (Medjugorje, 1917 – Chicago, 2006), who spent most of his life in the USA.
Vasilj defines philosophy as »the science that researches the meaning and purpose of human existence« and also defines the role, significance and value of the individual sciences, for it examines the most general principles of reality. His philosophy Vasilj called the “philosophy of life,” explaining that its task is to deal with the issues of the meaning of human existence and death, to encourage respect and love of a man for another man, but also to analyze concepts and prove claims that go beyond human experience. Philosophy grows out of two facts: the man himself does not make his own existence and does not die by his own decision.
Vasilj’s “philosophy of life” is fundamentally a “transcendent or general ontology” as “the basic science of creature and being founded on general experience” with the task of forming basic knowledge about creature and being (»spontaneous cognitions«). With this approach, Vasilj gave precedence to ontology over epistemology.
According to Vasilj, to reach the absolute beginning of the empirical world and step into a new world of metaphysics is possible only in one way: by connecting more systolic cognitions, based on experience, into new and original knowledge which reveals the world as the final series of physically related conditions from which the existence of a being a se as unconditionally necessary can be concluded.
Vasilj's philosophy of life can also be accomplished in another form – as philosophy of man. In his approach to man Vasilj starts from the union of the body and soul, but warns about the great difference between these components: man is limited by his body and infinite by his soul. Vasilj observes an immanent finality in human activity, but also claims that a man is forced to admit his own ignorance in the sphere of the last questions about the purpose of his own existence. Vasilj refers to two truths of paramount importance for man: of God’s existence and of immortality of the human soul.
According to Vasilj’s insight, man gradually advances in the accomplishment of his own being in time. Although he shows no preference to the Scotistic (and Franciscan) priority of the will over reason, Vasilj pays great attention to free will and consciousness. He understands human happiness as an action in accord with his most
perfect knowledge. For a man to accomplish a life in freedom and happiness, Vasilj proposes living and sacrifice of one’s own life out of love for another. The magnitude of the “love field” that man creates around himself is the only measure of his greatness.
Ključne riječi
Kvirin Vasilj; philosophy of life; ontology; anthropology; freedom; happiness; love
Hrčak ID:
131464
URI
Datum izdavanja:
15.10.2014.
Posjeta: 1.386 *