Henryk Elzenberg i tragizm religijnego materializmu

The Polish philosopher Henryk Elzenberg (1887-1967) describes a person who is religious but is also a materialist. In doing so, he makes reference to the Roman poet Lucretius. Elzenberg argues that to give meaning to his existence such a person must create spiritual islands in the sea of material things. His consciousness of the transience of spiritual creations makes him a tragic figure. World War II changed Elzenberg’s perspective, forcing him to realize that the sense of life is established not by one’s attitude to the material world, but by one’s attitude to man. The aim of this article is to argue that in this new context, a religious materialist is a tragic figure who constructs the meaning of his life on false assumptions about human nature.