Central and East European
Society for Phenomenology

Repository | Book | Chapter

203409

Leszek Kolakowski

a portrait

Wojciech Karpiński

pp. 83-106

Abstract

Stooped over, he balances, now on his cane, now, precariously, on the edge of his chair, a longish face, oval, broad forehead, lips smiling, accentuated by the slightly mocking folds of the cheeks and shining eyes. In those eyes, his whole face. The head, supported on the palm of the hand, sinks lower and lower, as if to emphasize the rhythm of his reasoning, then rises again, thrown sideways and back a little. He speaks. The phrases catch the imagination: intricate, tortuous, bordering sometimes on pastiche, expressing a love of the paradoxical, of formulae which seem to grant all to opposite points of view.