Dariusz Karłowicz

(b. 1964) – philosopher, essayist, columnist, academic lecturer, book publisher and social activist.

In 1995, together with a group of young scholars and columnists, he co-founded the Warsaw Club of Political Critique. In 2003, together with Marek Cichocki and Dariusz Gawin, he co-created “Political Theology” – one of the most opinion-forming milieus in Central Europe, gathering intellectuals, scholars and students. Their trademark is the yearbook “Political Theology” and the TV show “Trzeci punkt widzenia”. He is also on various boards and juries.

Karłowicz’s experience, which he gained in roles such as founder and director of the Saint Nicholas Foundation, member of the team which developed the concept of the Warsaw Rising Museum or originator and one of the organisers of the Cavalcade of the Magi also inspired his journalistic and essayistic creative work.

The old masters (Greek philosophers or Church Fathers) give Karłowicz answers to the question of how to live according to the classical triad: goodness, truth and beauty. His work “Arcyparadoks śmierci” (published in English as The Archparadox of Death) focuses on the martyrdom of the first Christians and its function as a philosophical category. Studying the works of ancient Hellenic thinkers and the writings of the Church Fathers, the author concluded that nobody fulfilled the ideal of the perfect life – posed as a goal by classic Greek philosophy – more completely than the martyrs of the first centuries. Karłowicz’s work shed new light on the relationship between Greek philosophy and Christian religion. In his next work, “Sokrates i inni święci” (2005, published in English as Socrates and the Other Saints), Karłowicz shows that Europe is rooted in the heritage of a synthesis between faith and reason. In order to prove it, he reaches for the sources, to the first centuries of our era and the encounter between Athens and Jerusalem, the Academy and the Church. The author’s fascination with the connections between modernity and antiquity is also revealed in his essay collection “Koniec snu Konstantyna” (The End of Constantine’s Dream, 2004). It is Karłowicz’s most journalistic book, discussing themes like the issue of identity in the postmodern world or the relations between memory and politics and how they affect the community.

Karłowicz’s book Socrates and the Other Saints (2006) was nominated for the Józef Mackiewicz Literary Award, and The End of Constantine’s Dream (2005) won the Andrzej Kijowski Prize. Karłowicz also received the Phoenix Prize awarded by the Catholic Publishers’ Association for his philosophical and theological activity and charity work (2007), the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2011) for his charity work, the “Wstańcie, chodźmy!” Award (2020) and the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2023).