Necessary and needless loneliness. The perspective of fact, development and relation - a case study of texts by Janusz Korczak

Abstract

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: Presentation of the experience of loneliness as a man’s need which, at the subsequent stages of his life (childhood and adolescence), plays specific development and existential functions.

THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The problem is shown in the question about the presentation and the function played by loneliness in the subsequent stages of a man’s life, taking into account three modes of its occurrence: as a fact, as a variable of ontogenetic development and the effect of inter- and intra-personal relations. The author attempts to reconstruct the developmental and existential sense and senselessness of experiencing loneliness (phenomenological aspect) in the context of its interpretation presented in the essays of Janusz Korczak (hermeneutic aspect).

THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: Introduction to the adopted interpretive categories and the structure of research questions in the following perspectives: philosophical, psychological and pedagogical and the continuum of two axiological aporia of sense and senselessness.

RESEARCH RESULTS: The presented analyses of the content of texts “Samotność dziecka,” “Samotność młodości” [“Loneliness of Child, Loneliness of Youth”] contain, at the same time, quality results of the study.

CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Loneliness is sensed both an objectively existing aspect of human existence, as well as a relational state of experiencing. The awareness of the sense and senselessness of the consequences of experiencing loneliness in the   development and existence of man allows the teacher to perceive it, to interpret it and to act with greater benefits for the vital forces and the feeling of sense among children.