Aristocratism of the spirit in Henryk Elzenberg's philosophy

Abstract

Elzenberg’s philosophy is usually defined as perfectionism, culturalism, pessimism, conservatism, or asceticism. Despite the accuracy and validity of the above mentioned terms it seems, however, that none of them fully encompass the characteristics of the view, tending rather to focus on its given profile. One term that, in my opinion, can be regarded as a suitable candidate for the role is “aristocratism of the spirit”, which embraces perfectionism, culturalism and asceticism as well as pessimism, conservatism and outsiderism. In debating on the elzenbergian variety of this idea I would like to put forward his relation to, or entanglement with the tendency to think in the categories of the aristocratism of the spirit, that has been present since the dawn of philosophy. I use the tentative term ‘entanglement’ here, as Elzenberg in his writings never declared, either openly or indirectly, any (formal) adherence to a movement, including the movement of the aristocratism of the spirit. My ascribing Elzenberg to this movement is a convention of interpretation, imposed upon his philosophy for heuristic reasons.