The critical genealogy of property and philosophy in the third course of "Paris lectures" by Adam Mickiewicz

The aim of this article is to present Adam Mickewicz’s Paris Lectures as his attempt to intellectually tackle the most profound challenges of modernity. I approached the subject by studying two categories that Mickiewicz employs in Paris Lectures: philosophy and property. The first seems to be a kind of focal point of cultural projects of modernity for him, while he sees the second as a materialistic core of ontology of modern social being. It is important to note that both categories, as employed by Mickiewicz, are deeply steeped in in social, historical and economic conditions of 19th century Poland that are very different from the situation of robust modernization of France, Great Britain or even Prussia. Because of that, Mickiewicz’s examination of modernity is an example of complicated relation between core-countries and periphery. Interestingly, Mickiewicz often suggest the presence of colonial component in his analysis of philosophy and property.