The Problem of the Idea of Culture in John Paul II

In The Problem of the Idea of Culture in John Paul II: Exposing the Disruptive Agency of the Philosophy of Karol Wojtyla, John Corrigan provides a new lens with which to view and understand the philosophy of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. He exposes Wojtyla as a major player in contemporary philosophical debates. The work reformulates the “problem of experience” in light of the questions surrounding our idea of culture. Corrigan argues that for Wojtyla the drama of the “problem of experience” manifests in the apparently divergent accounts of the meaning of human experience as presented by the philosophies of being and of consciousness. Solving this conundrum results in an idea of the person capable of explaining human experience in relation to human culture,unfolding the experiences of self-knowledge, conscience, and the ontic-causal relationship of the person to human culture. The first part of the book concerns formal considerations regarding the constitutive aspects of Wojtyla’s approach, while the second part deals with pragmatic considerations drawn from his comments on culture.