Mladá Filozofia 2026 - Keynote lecture - Maciej Kałuża: The Art of Accepting Failure

Počas 21. ročníka konferencie pre doktorandov a mladých vedeckých pracovníkov Mladá filozofia 2026 s témou Between the Art of Philosophy and Philosophy of Art organizovanej na Filozofickom ústave SAV v. v. i. vystúpil s prednáškou zahraničný hosť, doktor Maciej Kałuża z Ekonomickej univerzity v Krakowe. Dr. Kałuża vo svojej prednáške filozofiu štylizuje ako umenie prijímania zlyhania a následného rastu, pričom dôraz kladie na rozdiel medzi akademickou a žitou filozofiou. Prednáška je v anglickom jazyku. The Art of Accepting Failure: Philosophy as a Practice of Intellectual Humility This talk proposes a shift in how we understand the “art” of philosophy. Your PhD thesis and draft will be wrong on an ever growing number of places, really. Instead of treating philosophy primarily as a craft of producing bullet-proof arguments, systems, or definitive explanations, I suggest approaching it as an art of intellectual humility—an art of accepting failure. It started as a practical to have a good life and gain indifference to death. It ends frequently in a rat race for impact. Philosophical thinking has always operated in a space where certainty is fragile. Unlike empirical sciences, which increasingly rely on evidence-based methodologies and experimental validation, philosophy often constructs conceptual models, speculative frameworks, and interpretative visions of reality. These models are not always empirically verifiable and frequently become outdated, revised, or even abandoned. In this sense, philosophy is structurally exposed to the possibility of failure. However, this vulnerability is not a weakness; it is one of philosophy’s greatest strengths. Critical thinking trains us to recognize the provisional character of our ideas and to accept that no philosophical system can fully capture reality. The philosopher’s task is therefore not to achieve perfection or final truth, but to cultivate a disciplined openness to being wrong. The “art of accepting failure” thus becomes a fundamental philosophical virtue. It enables intellectual courage, methodological flexibility, and the capacity to revise one’s assumptions in light of new arguments, perspectives, or empirical developments. Rather than competing with empirical sciences, philosophy prepares us to engage with them critically and creatively, acknowledging the limits of our conceptual tools. In this sense, mastering the art of philosophy means mastering the art of thinking under conditions of uncertainty. To become a philosopher is not to become someone who is always right, but someone who has learned how to be productively wrong. 🧠 Pozrite si tiež:    • Učená spoločnosť Slovenska - Anatómia nási...      • PODCAST: Sci-fi za železnou oponou | #105 ...      • Čo (ne)vieme o psychických poruchách - Igo...   ___________________________________________________________________________________ Sledujte nás: Facebook:   / slovenskaakademiavied   Instagram:   / akademiavied   🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gldLi4... 🌐 Web: https://www.sav.sk/