14 years have passed since the death of Archbishop Professor Józef Życiński on 10 February 2005. He was a philosopher specialising in the philosophy of science and the relationship between natural sciences and theology, and received his Master's degree in Philosophy from the Academy of Catholic Theology in Warsaw (now Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw) in 1977. Życiński published 11 articles in SPCh and 4 other texts. In the article selected for recall, the author addressed the issue of the rationality of cognition. He made a historical review and analysis of positions on this issue and came to the conclusion that our ideas about rationality have changed greatly since the time of Descartes. The various types of rationality, their mutual limitations and conditions cannot be subsumed under a single simple formula. Both the programme of reducing all sciences to mechanics and the vision of a single unified science have proved unrealistic. This does not change the fact that the search for a unified theory in physics has been successful, and that supporters of A. Whitehead's ideas are still developing hypotheses about the possibility of mathematising aesthetics. "The awareness of the limits of our knowledge does not mean the failure of rationality, but rather enables the use of reason in the right area. For a long time, the monumental Pillars of Hercules off the Strait of Gibraltar were a symbol of boundaries for European civilisation. Until the time of Columbus' expeditions, they were considered the end of the cosy world of the intellectual heirs of Plato and Euclid. When Francis Bacon's Novum Organum was published in 1620, its title page featured an engraving of caravels sailing past the Pillars of Hercules. In the accepted symbolism, the foaming waves of the sea around Gibraltar were a reminder of both the existence of objective limitations and the human passion for knowledge leading to new lands. The limitations of the rational method of research that we have come to know in our century are as real as the Pillars of Hercules. They put an end to ‘provincial rationality’, in which the subjective feeling of certainty was attempted to be sustained by means of non-existent advantages of the scientific method" (p. 172). According to the author of the article, the discovery of limitations in our search for truth neither leads to scepticism nor justifies escapes into irrationality. Instead, it reveals an expanding horizon of intellectual exploration, on which respect for reason and openness to mystery should coexist.