Krzysztof Michalski

Krzysztof Michalski (8 June 1948 – 11 February 2013) was a Polish philosopher and the rector of Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (IWM) founded by him in Vienna in 1982.

Krzysztof Michalski was born in Warsaw. He studied philosophy at the University of Warsaw, where he received his Ph.D. in 1974 with a thesis on Heidegger and Contemporary Philosophy. In 1977, he spent one year in Germany as a Humboldt Fellow, from 1978 onwards he taught philosophy at the University of Warsaw. In 1981/82 he was a Thyssen Fellow at the Heidelberg University and in 1982/1983 a Fellow Commoner of Churchill College at Cambridge. In 1986, he was habilitated for Philosophy at the University of Warsaw with the study Logic and Time. Since 1986, Michalski has been teaching philosophy at Boston University, since 1994 also at the University of Warsaw.

In 1982, he founded the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna, of which he has since been the rector. The Institute is an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities and social sciences. Since its foundation in 1982, it has promoted intellectual exchange between East and West, between academia and society, and between a variety of disciplines and schools of thought.

Ahead of the Eastern enlargement of the EU, Michalski advised the European Commission on several occasions, most notably as chairman of the Reflection Group The Spiritual and Cultural Dimension of Europe (2002–04). He is chairman of the Institute for Public Affairs in Warsaw, and president of the Network of European Institutes for Advanced Study (NetIAS).). In 2004 he was awarded the Theodor Heuss Prize.

Michalski died on February 10, 2013, aged 64, in Vienna. He is survived by his daughters Kalina Michalska, a developmental neuroscientist at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, MD, and Julia Michalska, a journalist and editor at The Art Newspaper in London.

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