EXPERIENCE

In Polish philosophy, there are several words that can be translated as experience. The two most important are “doświadczenie” and “przeżycie”. Normally, the translator can simply use the word “experience”. However, some authors, such as Wojtyła use both terms in the same sentence to make some subtle distinction. It seems that when such a distinction is made, these words are “claques” referring to German, which has the two words “Erlebnis” (which contains “leben”, life, like Polish ”życie”,) and "Erfahrung”. In normal English, we might speak of “experience” in a general sense as a long process of accumulated experience, and of “an experience” as a singular and often vivid event. Normally, the former would be “doświadczenie”, the latter “przeżycie”. However, “doświadczenie” can sometimes refer to a singular event, and then there is “przeżywanie”, which is a process of having “przeżycie”.

Another word is “doznanie”. If we are writing for Aristotelian’s it is fine to use “passion”, but otherwise, it might be “experience”, or better maybe, “passive reception”.