An Introduction to Acting “Together with Others” and Participation as the Basis for Community in the Thought of Karol Wojtyla

Karol Wojtyła’s conception of community is an often overlooked part of his vast body of writing. While much energy is dedicated to his ethics and theology, little attention is given to how he defined the way in which human persons interact with one another and build the communities and societies wherein they find themselves. Central to this definition of community are the concepts of “acting ‘together with others’” and “participation.” For Wojtyła, these two intimately personal and subjective aspects of the human person serve as both the basis and mode from which authentic human communities emerge. This work presents an introduction to Wojtyła’s basis for community through analyzing “acting ‘together with others’” and “participation,” thus placing the primary impetus for inter-personal action strictly within the tradition of metaphysical anthropology and personalism which Wojtyła himself embraced. In doing so, an overview of Wojtyła’s thought is presented that is based on his most influential philosophical works concerning community, particularly Person and Act and The Person: Subject and Community, with this serving as a realistic philosophical background for subsequent analysis of both the human person and communities generally.