Introduction: Tropical Madness – Witkacy’s Journey to the East

In philosophy a proponent of biological monadology (derived from Leibniz), Witkacy explored the problem posed by the directly given feeling of the unity of personality on the part of each Individual Being (the “I” or self) as it confronts the plurality of all that lies outside it (the “non-I” or other). From these premises there results the existential plight of the individual in a world of otherness, giving rise to a tragic sense of life.