Separation as the Basic Method of Realistic Metaphysics: The Approach by the Lublin Philosophical School Representatives

The author discusses the problem of separation as the base method of metaphysical cognition as approached by the Lublin Philosophical School representatives. He begins by showing the sources of the method, seeing them in St. Thomas Aquinas’s intuitions which were discovered only in the 20th century by those who developed the existential interpretation of Aquinas’s metaphysics (J. Maritain, É. Gilson, M. A. Krąpiec). In this context, the author draws attention to the achievements of the creators and co-creators of the Lublin Philosophical School. They made an exceptional contribution to high-lighting the very bases of the separation method and its significance for the entire metaphysical cognition. From the perspective of metaphysics, the foremost and crucial is the application of separation for identifying the object of metaphysical cognition. At stake here is the determination of the first cognitive apprehension—that is, the grasp of what the intellect cognizes as the first (primum cognitum) and what was called in the tradition “being as being” or “the concept of being.” The separation method allows, first of all, to consider the existential aspect of being in cognitive apprehensions, which is accomplished in the three stages that start with and are based on the analysis of existential judgments. Next, the author describes the application of the separation method in other domains of existential cognition, showing how indispensable the method is in preserving such inherent features of this type of cognition as transcendentalness, directness, realism, and analogicalness.