Wspólnotowość. W poszukiwaniu spoiwa wspólnoty politycznej

"Communality. In search of the binder for political community" is a study in the field of political philosophy. Its main idea is to analyze, interpret and systematize certain concepts which are present both in European philosophical thought and in cultural and political projects in Europe, and which bind together national and international communities. The study is carried out according to the criteria set by the author. For the sake of the study, a number of Polish and foreign philosophical texts have been selected, the importance of which enables us to capture both complexity and ambiguity of the problem. The foreign reflections on community are selected from the works of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Alexis de Tocqueville, Soren Kierkegaard and Jürgen Habermas. The Polish philosophical thought on the issue is represented by Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski, Piotr Skarga, Hugo Kołłątaj, Maurycy Mochnacki, Karol Libelt, Felix Koneczny, Leszek Kołakowski, Adam Chmielewski and Andrzej Szahaj. The political and cultural projects and visions of the European unification which are analyzed in the study, were developed by Robert Schuman, Jacques Chirac, Angela Merkel, the Wise Men Group, and by the following popes: John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis.
 
By adopting the two sided approach to the issue of the binder: the foreign one (which takes into account the things which are or could be common to everybody within their national and international communities and which are also present in various streams of European philosophical thought) and the Polish one (which concentrates mainly on the question of national unity) the author tries to tackle the problem from two different angles. Their common denominator lies in the issue of community bonds. What makes them different, however, is that the European approach can be seen in terms of the diversity of concepts which have originated in different environments and for the sake of various communities. On the other hand, the Polish approach, despite its diversity, can be characterized as more homogenous. And even though it was quite common for the native concepts to draw extensively on European proposals, their final shape was given within the same community which was quite conscious of its own identity. What is more, that binding force has been tested anew each time the nation had to undergo the tests and trials of history under various historical, political and social conditions. These different yet complementary approaches to the problem of a “community binder” cast a new light on the issue and give us better understanding of its nature. 

The whole study consists of an introduction, five chapters and conclusion. The first three chapters are dedicated to the problem of community. Special attention is paid to the communal political bodies as present in the concepts and projects (both Polish and foreign) related to national and international communities. Chapter Four deals with some significant problems which pose a challenge both to certain concepts and to communal projects – in particular to the European Union. These include: (1) the clash of the idea of the common good with a variously defined concept of self-interest (as understood by the European Union, the member states and their citizens); (2) eradication of the pre-political roots of communal ties which have their origin in customs and morals (mores), traditional forms of solidarity and social interaction; (3) difficulty in realizing the principles of democracy in modern political communities, that is, in taking a stand on the issues which are relevant to everyone – especially if it is done in the way which is not rooted in religion, ethics and culture. 
The aim of the analysis contained in Chapter Five is to systematize the views on the communal binder. Consequently, the author has developed a typology of various concepts of community and the nature of political bonds which can be derived from them. Finally, the summary recapitulates the results of the enquiry and forms some meta-objective postulates with regard to further studies of the problem.

The present study understands the term “binder” as a variously expressed reality which: a) binds together different people in a particular socio-political community and at the same time b) stimulates their social activities to express self-determination and participation in the decision-making process which is based on the public and democratic moulding of people’s will and opinion according to their inherent civic rights and duties.