Career
During the Kościuszko Uprising (1794) Szaniawski was a Polish Jacobin. The Polish Deputation hoped to bring about an armed uprising and social revolution in occupied Poland with the support of revolutionary France. The Polish Deputation thereby came into conflict with the moderate Kościuszko-Uprising émigré activists of the "Agency" (Agencja), founded in Paris in 1794, which opposed armed action in Poland, counting instead on France"s diplomatic and military aid, and supporting Henryk Dąbrowski"s Polish Legions.
On returning to Warsaw during the Prussian occupation, Szaniawski co-edited Gazeta Warszawska (The Warsaw Gazette) and initiated "Korespondencja w materiach obraz kraju i narodu polskiego rozjaśniających" ("Correspondence on Matters Elucidating the Picture of Poland and the Polish People").
A former student of Kant"s in Königsberg, he waged a campaign in favor of Kantism. From 1802 to 1808 Szaniawski published his philosophical works in rapid succession.
He was the first to lead the campaign against the Enlightenment in Poland. He became an apostle of German philosophy and was the first to introduce it into Poland.
He owed a particular debt to Schelling.
Thus this one man introduced to Poland both the anti-metaphysical Kant and the post-Kantian metaphysics. He introduced them, but later disavowed them. He had entered the civil service and rose quickly to high station, becoming attorney general of the Duchy of Warsaw (1807-1815), then secretary of the Provisional Government, then referendary of state under the Congress Poland.
And a curious change came over him: not only did he lose interest in philosophy, but now he sought to restrain its development.
When toward the end of his life, in 1842, he spoke about philosophy, it was only to represent all its theories as a pack of errors.
