Professor Edmund Mokrzycki (on the left) with Professor Stefan Amsterdamski.

Edmund Mokrzycki was a distinguished sociologist and philosopher of science, and the founder of the Centre for Social Studies. He was an insightful commentator on contemporary Polish society, both in times of socialism and today's democracy. Edmund Mokrzycki, in a creative way, was continuing the humanistic tradition in Polish sociology, advocating open society and tolerance toward different scientific views, political beliefs and social attitudes. He was born on 6 January 1937, and attended Warsaw University after 1956, when scholars of Warsaw-Lvov school were given back their teaching posts. Janina Kotarbinska taught him philosophy, Maria and Stanislaw Ossowski - sociology. A scholarship at University of California, Berkeley helped him to become acquainted with American sociology.

His first book Principles in Humanistic Sociology was published in Polish in 1970, and then he continued on this topic in Philosophy of Science and Sociology: From the Methodological Doctrine to Research Practice (1983). The humanistic re-evaluation of the positivist doctrine in sociology was his life-long interest. He was arguing both against the claims made by Marxist historical materialism and radical premises of naturalist perspective. He edited several other volumes on the subject in subsequent years and wrote articles in Polish, English and Russian. His writing was critical, often leading to controversies, as he was not aiming at common acceptance. Clarity of argumentation and reliability of evidence were values inculcated by his mentors, and in these he preserved, being curious of the new problems and ways to deal with them. This is the spirit of his first two books on philosophy of social science.

Professor Edmund Mokrzycki (on the right) with Professor Bronisław Geremek

After the liberation of 1989 he became more focused on institutions, values and interests of Polish society and its complex reality. This liberated interest found its expression in articles of profound influence that he published in non-academic press, as well as books like New Great Transformation? co-edited with C. Bryant (1995); Democracy, Civil Society and Pluralism in Comparative Perspective: Poland, Great Britain and the Netherlands, also co-edited with C. Bryant; or Democracy in Local Context co-edited with A. Rychard; as well as in articles in "Polish Sociological Review", "Sisyphus", "Telos", "Studies in Comparative Communism", "Social Research" as well as in collective volumes.

Over the years, especially since he moved to the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Edek - as he was nicknamed by friends and colleagues - became an institution himself. He was a visiting professor at Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki (1972), University of Chicago (1976-1977), fellow at British Academy (1980), NIAS (1984-1985), the Institute of Applied Social Research, Oslo (1972) and Jean Monnet Fellow, European University Institute, Florence (1992-3). He was a member of the editorial and advisory boards of "Studia Socjologiczne", "The Polish Sociological Review", "Sisyphus" and "The British Journal of Sociology". He served on many significant academic and advisory public councils and committees, and represented the Polish Academy of Sciences at the International Council for Social Sciences. Within the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology he chaired the Department of Theoretical Sociology. After 1995, he also became involved the creation and development of the Centre for Social Studies as its first director.

Joanna Kurczewska
Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences