In the Spotlight:Paul Vjecsner
Author of On Proof for the Existence
of God, and Other Reflective Inquiries

Author Paul Vjecsner, influenced by the likes of such great thinkers as Hume, Locke and Aristotle, has meticulously challenged some very tough issues in Reflective Inquiries, a philosophical work that sheds a fresh light on old ideas and disseminates the potential advancement of knowledge via simplified ways of thinking from the dogma of accepted points of knowledge. The author re-examines several issues beginning with foundational beliefs of natural law and, using logic, has simplified the path from which today's accepted beliefs evolved in a way that has not been seriously pursued by modern academics. Vjecsner stakes the claim that new, simpler possibilities exist to examine our reality and that resolutions can be arrived at using deductive inquiry and logic which shed our clouded perception of foundational issues.

A Holocaust survivor, Vjecsner attributes his salvation in part to his artistic ability (View samples below or detailed portfolio) which he pursued professionally in Europe until his emigration to the United States in 1948 at age twenty-two. Unable to locate employment as a commercial artist, he enlisted in the US Army where, to his surprise, his talent was recognized and put to use for the military. Although events foretold the end of his career as an artist, a natural interest in mathematics and logic allowed him to turn to other interests. Applying his problem-solving abilities to develop successful solutions resulted in multiple patents and articles published in Paperboard Packaging and mathematical journals.

Although Vjecsner is not an academic and can claim to be completely self-taught, his gift for logical thought and thirst for knowledge has led him to independently study and pursue clarification of such tough subjects as mathematics, logic, natural theology, and philosophy over the years. Turning to the perfection of a system of logic, Vjecsner has accepted what he feels is "a responsibility to express his discoveries and challenge many of the dogmatic issues found within a variety of subjects which resist change."

Many reviewers more scholarly than myself have written positively about Vjecsner's fresh perspective, yet I found his book entirely readable in whole or in part. Successfully written for either academics or anyone with an interest in increasing their knowledge, Reflective Inquiries addresses the basic concepts of our reality and how we see that knowledge, express it, and expand on it.

“Advertised as a ‘Cartesian reexamination of basic presuppositions, old and new, in philosophy and sciences’, this is a painstaking effort. Its stated purpose is to disclose how various truths such as free will, and including some now considered undemonstrable, ‘can be reflectively demonstrated and thereby an actual rather than speculative edifice of existence revealed’. The author sedulously presents his ‘[process] of inquiry’ and then four chapters: on language and concepts; on self, mind, and external reality; on logic and mathematics; and finally on the existence of God, with further inquiries into ‘the goodness of God and man’ and ‘heaven and immortality’. The chapters are independent but are cross-referenced, and ‘premises on which conclusions there are based may be substantiated elsewhere’.

 

A prospective reader, then, should not be misled by the title into expecting the early chapters to simply underpin the ‘proof for the existence of God’. The caution that ‘sections can be read individually by individual readers’ could alert those interested expressly in that proof and not in the exercises of erudition, acumen, and reasoning skill that precede it. …"

—Thought (December 1989), Fordham University

 Artwork

Paul Vjecsner is also an accomplished commercial artist, with a few samples of his work included here. Much of his work was produced in post WWII Prague where he pursued work in graphic art and design, including line art, production of movie posters for offset and lithographic printing, as well as illustration and writing copy for serials in a youth magazine. Vjecsner's career was interrupted when he emigrated to America early in 1948 just after the Soviets took control of Czechoslovakia.

The following images and descriptive text are samples from the author's web site, where more detailed images from his portfolio and information regarding mediums and use can be seen. http://www.vjecsner.net/.

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In Prague, Vjecsner was fortunate enough to obtain assignments for movie posters, "equally not easy, having had to at least demonstrate that I could draw or paint faithful likenesses of known, or unknown, actors. This was somewhat ideal, because I drew portraits since I was about 10 or 11, and it helped me to survive the Holocaust by drawing portraits of family members of such as German guards, getting some food in return. Mostly I drew from photographs, and in the process I also taught myself to draw with colored pencils from black & white pictures, a practice helpful with these posters, for which I was likewise supplied only black & white photographs, as I recall.

"The last poster and the next one happened to be designed for as well as finished by process printing, retaining original values. The title in English of the (see poster on left) Boyer movie was Appointment with Love, and it was wrongly translated to something like "Date with beloved", missing the point.

"Charles Boyer was around the war years the rage in Europe as "the great lover", as I remember especially from when a teenager in Hungary. His movies played well also in Czechoslovakia.

"I did black & white line illustrations by design, for a book published in the magazine as inserts in separate parts (one of the pages shown to the right). Using pen and ink alone lent itself to techniques like cross-hatching for darker places. The title, "Zelené jezero," means "Green Lake", and it is of a novel about young people from different social strata."

Vjecsner emigrated to America in 1948 where he became dismayed with his efforts to secure permanent full time work as a graphic artist. Enlisting in the Army, he was soon recognized for his talent and transferred to the 2nd Army Headquarters where he began what he terms as the "first phase" of his Army career creating hand-drawn graphics for military publications (bottom right). "The second phase began on my seeing in an Army periodical an ad for an artist by the Recruiting Publicity Bureau, stationed at what was then Fort Jay on Governors Island, south of New York City. I went there to apply, and was given some artwork to do as a test. They liked it and had me transferred to their location.

"I worked in a small workplace with only a few other GI artists, but as far as I know I was the only resident one who was given the chance to have a recruiting poster printed. They let me try ideas for these, based on all kinds of (black & white, as I remember) photos they obtained. The drawing of the boy (left)—or call it a painting—is a so-called comprehensive I did of my suggestion for a poster, without copy added." The completed recruitment poster  (on left) was first created as a detailed painting and finally prepared for printing.

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