Andrzej Wierciński

“Andrzej Wierciński is currently the most outstanding author in Poland who represents philosophical pedagogy, on the one hand, and the philosophy of educational practice, on the other, while combining hermeneutic and critical perspectives. His cognitive maturity is expressed by the ability to move at ease across academic disciplines, which are usually treated as separate and even actively and nonchalantly severed from each other to the detriment of the intellectual culture of the Academy. In his interpretations and analyses, Wierciński connects the academic areas fraught up with current pseudo-reforms and preserved as such in segregated and isolated circles. He protected his intellectual path from the pressures which dichotomize differences and divisions, and which weaken, at the same time, the quality of the possible rooting in the contemporary intellectual culture of its polymorphic form, which always requires fusions as transdisciplinarity and not just interdisciplinarity.” (Witkowski 2020, 120)

Wierciński received the 2019 Hermes Award: A Book of the Year in Phenomenological Hermeneutics (IIH) for his two books, Hermeneutics of Education: Exploring and Experiencing the Unpredictability of Education and Existentia Hermeneutica: Understanding as the Mode of Being in the World that are the outstanding accomplishments of his hermeneutic path.

Wierciński completed his M.A. with distinction in Theology (Catholic University of Lublin, 1984), and was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Lublin April 4, 1985. In 1990, he took his doctorate in philosophy with Stanisław Wielgus at the Catholic University of Lublin with a dissertation, Die scholastischen Vorbedingungen der Metaphysik Gustav Siewerths: Eine historisch-kritische Studie mit Bezug auf die Seinsvergessenheitstheorie von Martin Heidegger. His second doctorate was in Theology with Gerhard-Ludwig Müller at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich with a dissertation, Der Dichter in seinem Dichtersein: Versuch einer philosophisch-theologischen Deutung des Dichterseins am Beispiel von Czesław Miłosz. In 2007, Wierciński took his Habilitation in Philosophy of Religion at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität in Freiburg i.Br. with a monograph, Hermeneutics between Philosophy and Theology: The Imperative to Think the Incommensurable. After obtaining a venia legendi in Philosophy of Religion, he was Privatdozent before becoming in 2012 ausserplanmäßiger Professor (Professor extra numerum) of Philosophy of Religion at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. From 2015 to 2021 he was Professor of General Education and Philosophy of Education, Faculty of Education, University of Warsaw. In 2020, Wierciński received the title of Professor rerum socialium in Education (Decision of the President of the Republic of Poland of September 28, 2020). In 2021, he was awarded the honor of Professor honoris causa at the IIH and received the 2021 Blue Diamond Hermes Award: An Outstanding Contribution to Phenomenological Hermeneutics (IIH). Since 2022 he is Professor of Liberal Arts, Faculty of Artes Liberales, University of Warsaw.

Andrzej Wiercinski (born March 10, 1961 in Białystok, Poland) is a Hermeneutician, Philosopher,  and Theologian. As the transdisciplinary thinker, he is Professor of Liberal Arts, Faculty of Artes Liberales at the University of Warsaw, President-Founder (2001) of the International Institute for Hermeneutics (IIH), and President of Agora Hermeneutica (IIH).