Alicja Gescinska
Alicja Gescinska (Warsaw, 1981) is a Polish-Belgian philosopher.
Gescinska obtained a Master’s degree summa cum laude in Moral Sciences at Ghent University. She became Doctor of Philosophy at the same university in 2012, having written a dissertation on the philosophy of Max Scheler and Karol Wojtyla: Freedom and Persons: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Meaning of Human Agency in the Thought of Max Scheler and Karol Wojtyla.
Her book De verovering van de vrijheid – a philosophical and personal reflection on the meaning of freedom – was very well received. It was awarded by deMens.nu as the best non-fiction book of 2010-2011, and was shortlisted for other literary prizes as well.[1]
In 2012 she wrote an essay on fear and freedom, which is based on the Freedom Lecture she delivered on Liberation Day, 5 May 2012, at Felix Meritis in Amsterdam. The essay concerns the way in which resentment and hatred lead to the decline of personal and political freedom.[2]
Gescinska currently works as a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University.[3]
She is a frequently asked pundit in Belgium and The Netherlands. She is a member of the “Philosophical Team” of the Dutch newspaper Trouw,[4] and writes a philosophical column every two weeks for the Belgian newspaper De Morgen.[5]