In contemporary thinking on values and in the hopes that some of us have in axiology, there is a kind of paradox. First of all, for many years now, especially here in Poland, interest in values has shown no sign of waning. It does not seem likely that this is by accident. Rather, it suggests that we have become aware of a crisis situation, one in which the certainty of what is basic has deserted us. We have lost our spontaneous faith in God, as well as our spontaneous belief in the permanence of our own human nature and the nature of things around us. On what, then, should we base our decisions? Values would seem to be a convenient basis, for they require neither faith in God nor the kind of knowledge involved in understanding human nature and the essence of things. Advocates of various worldviews, proceeding from their diverse standpoints, can give a compromising assent to values. For many skeptics, axiology is a constant recourse in the face of nihilism. For some Christians, it is a comfortable level of dialogue with those who have lost respect for technology and the power of matter released by it, but have not yet managed to arrive at faith in God. One hears, then: before we arrive at an understanding concerning God and the essence of things, let us at least agree that “truth always means truth, and justice, justice”.

At the same time, however, we observe an opposite phenomenon: a decided movement away from axiology, evident particularly in the West. This is reflected in assertions by the increasingly influential philosopher, Martin Heidegger. He writes, for example: “The bizarre effort to prove the objectivity of values does not know what it is doing. When one proclaims ‘God’ the altogether ‘highest value,’ this is a degradation of God’s essence. Here as elsewhere thinking in values is the greatest blasphemy imaginable against Being.”[1] Helmut Kuhn sums up the history of modern axiology in a familiar way.[2] Axiology, he says, reached its peak in Nietzsche. But Nietzsche, with his famous “transvaluation of values,” placed values under the control of the “will to power.” The concept of values thus became associated with subjectivism and nihilism. The efforts of Max Scheler, Nicolai Hartmann, and other phenomenologists were of no avail. The idea of an object is inseparable from that of a subject. The more we accentuate the objective aspect of values, the more the subject will resound. Axiology, rather than allowing us to get beyond the realm of the subject, will constantly emphasize subjectivity.

Some, then, see axiology as a defense against nihilism, while others see it as leading straight to nihilism. Why is this so? Some years ago, Roman Ingarden presented an important paper in Krakow entitled “What Don’t We Know About Values?” But then our intellectual situation was different. On the one hand, the radical questioning of axiology by proponents of thinking “in the truth of Being” had not yet penetrated our consciousness. On the other, the ever present questioning by positivistic thought was something we did not take too seriously; we were sure that phenomenology would overcome positivism, although the positivists knew nothing of this. Consequently, today, in my opinion, we should formulate our problem differently, perhaps more fundamentally: Have we reached a point in our thinking to be able to dispense with thinking in values? Our question should focus on thinking. Many proponents of axiology believe that axiology has its subjective basis in the emotional sphere of the human being, because “reason is blind to values.” Is it really? Today, in the face of the type of questioning we find in Heidegger, we must search for the basis of axiology at the very heart of thinking, otherwise axiology will not fulfill the hopes that have arisen in this crisis situation. Is our thinking a thinking in values, and are we in a position to dispense with such thinking?

The problem of values is usually viewed from two sides: from the side of the thing to which certain values “belong,” and from the side of the person who experiences values and thinks in values. We will first consider the matter from the side of the thing, and then from the side of the person. Our treatment will be very general. We will not get into the controversies over the precise meaning of the concepts involved, but simply try to capture what seems most evident.

We find ourselves at this moment in a lecture hall. There are here with us acquaintances and strangers, professors and colleagues, people more or less congenial to us. There are also objects, such as chairs, windows, doors, and microphones. Every person and every object requires from us appropriate recognition and behavior. In order to behave properly in this small world of ours, we must know how to “interpret values.” We do not greet chairs, and we do not look for a place to sit on the laps of those already seated. Barring necessity, we do not sit with our backs to the podium. Our current world is clearly a world of values, and we in it are creatures who interpret those values. What does this mean? Let us not bicker over the use of concepts but try to enter directly into the experience.

When we say that “our world is a world of values,” we see around us concrete matters and things. Perhaps even more “matters” than “things.” Someone was just now waiting for us because he had some “matter” to discuss with us. We were waiting for someone in order to tell her “something important.” Someone has fallen ill, and we need to buy medicine. Someone has died, and we need to go to the funeral. Someone is happy because he just got married. We look around “our” landscape: here we see someone’s home, there a forest full of attractions, further on a school, a church, and here a cemetery grove. We can multiply the descriptions and make them ever more dramatic and concrete. One thing, however, will constantly recur: the human world contains something that is good and something that is evil, and also something that is better, worse, and worst. Our world is — in a sense that is difficult to define more precisely — a hierarchically ordered world. Matters, objects, and people are arranged in it for us in a more or less stable hierarchical order. We do not know exactly what evil is or what good is. We do not know precisely where to draw the line between the one and the other. And yet we cannot avoid a certain hierarchy. Truth be told, on closer inspection, we never even try to do so. Our main concern in our world is to avoid the “evil” that presently threatens us and to attain the “good” that here and now is to be attained.

Could “our world” be a different world? At first glance, it seems that it could. A world devoid of values is not an intrinsically contradictory world. In the homogenous geometrical space that we are able to conceive, all forms and figures are equally important and equally unimportant. We can say that a rock is itself, a tree is itself, an animal is itself, a human being is itself. A being is a being, and every being has its own characteristics. Among those characteristics, however, there is none that would be kindness or animosity, better or worse. Everything exists “on the same plane.” Nietzsche said: “Evil is a superstition of God — quoth the serpent.” We can say: “Evil is a superstition of human beings,” and so is good. Although an objectivistic view of the world is not self-contradictory, we know that a radically objectified world, a world devoid of values, is certainly not our world. In the world of “objects” there are figures, forms, and planes, and no one object is better than another. In our world, the world in which we are born and die, there is a home and homelessness; there is a place for work and a lack thereof; there is a school, a church, and also a cemetery, and all of this presents us with a dignity all its own. In this world there is also hunger and injustice, courage and death, important matters and those of less importance. If all of this were suddenly to become wholly indifferent to someone, we would ask with concern: What’s the matter with that person? In this question, the hierarchy returns to us.

[1] Martin Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” Basic Writings (New York: Harper, 1977) 228.

[2] Helmut Kuhn, Das Sein und das Gute (Munich: Kösel, 1962).