Public political philosophy in Poland: Phacts, phictions, and philennials

All over the world, political philosophers are increasingly told to deliver more ‘engagement’, ‘relevance’, or ‘impact’, without it being remotely clear what this should involve. Less analysis and more activism? Fewer principles and more policies? Less critique and more cooperation? Or something else altogether: a particular way of working with others that sits alongside, rather than replaces, what we already do as professional scholars. In support of this last possibility, my argument here has two stages. First, a flexible theory of ‘public political philosophy’ that others can adopt or amend as they see fit. Second, a development of that theory by way of a particular ‘case-study’: ‘inter-minority dialogue’ in Poland, and especially dialogue between, and about, Jewish and Muslim communities residing there. Note though, in advance, that this is not ‘development’ in the sense of either ‘testing’ an empirical theory or ‘applying’ a normative one. Instead I aim simply to sketch out a particular kind of conversation, between and amongst these groups, as well as local scholars, by setting out three ‘methods’ they can experiment with, each of which is intended to support, rather than supplant, whatever dialogues are already locally occurring. These three I call ‘phacts’, ‘phictions’, and ‘philennials’, and if they are far from a solution to any of the problems these communities face, they are at least a new contribution that philosophers are particularly well placed to facilitate.