The Introduction outlines, in a concise way, the history of the Lvov-Warsaw School—a most unique Polish school of worldwide renown, which pioneered trends combining philosophy, logic, mathematics and language. The author accepts that the beginnings of the School fall on the year 1895, when its founder Kazimierz Twardowski, a disciple of Franz Brentano, came to Lvov on his mission to organize a scientific circle. Soon, among the characteristic features of the School was its serious approach towards (...) philosophical studies and teaching of philosophy, dealing with philosophy and propagation of it as an intellectual and moral mission, passion for clarity and precision, as well as exchange of thoughts, and cooperation with representatives of other disciplines. The genesis is followed by a chronological presentation of the development of the School in the successive years. The author mentions all the key representatives of the School, accompanying the names with short descriptions of their achievements. The development of the School after Poland’s regaining independence in 1918 meant part of the members moving from Lvov to Warsaw, thus providing the other segment to the name—Warsaw School of Logic. The author dwells longer on the activity of the School during the Interwar period—the time of its greatest prosperity, which ended along with the outbreak of World War 2. Attempts made after the War to recreate the spirit of the School are also outlined and the names of continuators are listed accordingly. The presentation ends with some concluding remarks on the contribution of the School to contemporary developments in the fields of philosophy, mathematical logic or computer science in Poland. (shrink)

One can often encounter an opinion that Polish scientific philosophy deserves to be much better known than actually is. This book is thought as a response to such a claim. The papers collected in this volume are divided into two parts: Background and Influence and History and Systematics. However, there is no sharp borderline between themes which are touched in both parts. Generally speaking, all papers of the first part relate the Lvov-Warsaw School to some philosophical movements (...) external to it whereas the papers collected in the second one focus on internal issues connected with the school . Since the Polish school of mathematical logic is much better known than the Polish analytic philosophy we decided to omit here any treatment of the former. Thus, this collection centers on purely philosophical matters. We projected this volume not as an exhaustive panorama of Polish analytic philosophy but rather as a series of essays on particular persons or topic. As a result one can find here papers on Twardowski. Ajdukiewicz, Kotarbinski, Tarski and Lukasiewicz as well as on ethics on science, nominalism, and the methodology of psychology. We hope that this book will contribute to a better knowledge and evaluation of Polish achievements in analytic philosophy. We would like to express our gratitude to Professor Leszek Nowak, the editor-in-chief of Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, who initiated the idea of the collection and helped in its preparation. (shrink)

This is a collection of new investigations and discoveries on the history of a great tradition, the Lvov-Warsaw School of logic , philosophy and mathematics, by the best specialists from all over the world. The papers range from historical considerations to new philosophical, logical and mathematical developments of this impressive School, including applications to Computer Science, Mathematics, Metalogic, Scientific and Analytic Philosophy, Theory of Models and Linguistics.

Between 11–14 February 2021 the first international Philosophical Workshop organized by The Lvov–Warsaw School Research Center and Kazimierz Twardowski Philosophical Society of Lviv took place in the on–line version due to the ongoing COVID–19 pandemic. The working languages of the event were Polish, Ukrainian and English. The coordinators’ goal was to refer to the tradition of seminar of Kazimierz Twardowski, who was not only a distinguished philosopher but also a great educator, to stimulate interest and support for (...) the young generation of researchers into the heritage of the Lvov–Warsaw School. It is claimed that due to Twardowski’s unprecedented didactical engagement he managed to upbring dozens of Professors like Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Stefan Baley, Leopold Blaustein, Tadeusz Czeżowski, Izydora Dąmbska, Tadeusz Kotarbiński, tanisław Leśniewski, Jan Łukasiewicz, Władysław Witwicki. (shrink)

The Introduction outlines, in a concise way, the history of the Lvov-Warsaw School – a most unique Polish school of worldwide renown, which pioneered trends combining philosophy, logic, mathematics and language. The author accepts that the beginnings of the School fall on the year 1895, when its founder Kazimierz Twardowski, a disciple of Franz Brentano, came to Lvov on his mission to organize a scientific circle. Soon, among the characteristic features of the School was its serious (...) approach towards philosophical studies and teaching of philosophy, dealing with philosophy and propagation of it as an intellectual and moral mission, passion for clarity and precision, as well as exchange of thoughts, and cooperation with representatives of other disciplines.The genesis is followed by a chronological presentation of the development of the School in the successive years. The author mentions all the key representatives of the School (among others, Ajdukiewicz, Lesniewski, Łukasiewicz,Tarski), accompanying the names with short descriptions of their achievements. The development of the School after Poland’s regaining independence in 1918 meant part of the members moving from Lvov to Warsaw, thus providing the other segment to the name – Warsaw School of Logic. The author dwells longer on the activity of the School during the Interwar period – the time of its greatest prosperity, which ended along with the outbreak of World War 2. Attempts made after the War to recreate the spirit of the School are also outlined and the names of followers are listed accordingly. The presentation ends with some concluding remarks on the contribution of the School to contemporary developments in the fields of philosophy, mathematical logic or computer science in Poland. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to consider ontological views connected with mathematics and logic of main representatives of Lvov-Warsaw School of Philosophy. In particular views of the following scholars will be presented and discussed: Jan Łukasiewicz, Stanisław Leśniewski, Alfred Tarski, Tadeusz Kotarbiński and Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz. We shall consider also views of Andrzej Mostowski who belonged to the second generation of the school as well as of Leon Chwistek who was not directly the member of this group (...) but whose conceptions are of interest. (shrink)

Maria Kokoszyńska-Lutmanowa was one of the most outstanding female representatives of the Lvov-Warsaw School. After achieving her PhD in philosophy under Kazimierz Twardowski’s supervision, she was Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz’s assistant. She was also influenced by Alfred Tarski whose results in semantics she analyzed and popularized. After World War II, she got the chair of logic in University of Wrocław and she organized studies in logic in this academic center. In the 1930s, Kokoszyńska kept in contact with members of the (...) Vienna Circle and became a kind of connecting factor between Polish logicians and the Viennese group. In Poland, she presented the views of members of the Vienna Circle. In Vienna, she emphasized the results of her Polish colleagues. In the present paper, some of Kokoszyńska’s results connected with the matters discussed in the Vienna Circle are presented, namely with the problem of metaphysics, the status of logic and the idea of unity of science. (shrink)

In March 1930, Alfred Tarski visited Vienna and delivered few lectures which presented the achievements of the logical branch of the Lvov-Warsaw School. Rudolf Carnap was one of the most careful listeners of these lectures. The same year, in November, Carnap, invited by the Warsaw Philosophical Society, visited Warsaw where he gave three lectures. This was an opportunity for him to meet such members the Lvov-Warsaw School as Jan Łukasiewicz, Stanisław Leśniewski, Tadeusz Kotarbiński, and (...) others. Many years later, Carnap reminisced that he left Warsaw “grateful for many stimulating suggestions and the fruitful exchange of ideas”.In the paper, I reconstruct the details of Carnap’s visit in Warsaw based on Carnap’s diaries, reports published in the Polish Journal Ruch Filozoficzny [Philosophical Movement] and some correspondence. I also discuss some problems presented by Carnap in Warsaw lectures and compare his views to the positons of members of the Lvov-Warsaw School. These problems are: the foundations of psychology, the status of metaphysical sentences, and the character of reasoning. (shrink)

Polish philosophy of science has been the beneficiary of three powerful creative streams of scientific and philosophical thought. First and fore­ most was the Lwow-Warsaw school of Polish analytical philosophy founded by Twardowski and continued in their several ways by Les­ niewski, Lukasiewicz, and Tarski, the great mathematical and logical philosophers, by Kotarbinski, probably the most distinguished teacher, public figure, and culturally influential philosopher of the inter-war and post-war period, and by Ajdukiewicz, the linguistic philosopher who was (...) intellectually sympathetic with the anti-irrationalist (as he would say), logistic and meta-theoretical inquiries of the Vienna Circle. Second was independent and lively Polish Marxism, with its fine development of social research under Krzywicki, a social anthropologist and younger contemporary of Engels, and then after the war the economist Lange, the philosophers Schaff, Kolakowski, Baczko, and many others. Finally there has been a wide range of philosophical, scientific and humanistic scholar­ ship which lends its various qualities to the understanding of both the logic of science and the historical situation of the sciences: we mention only that great and humane physicist Infeld, the phenomenologist with deep epistemological interest Ingarden, the historian of scientific ideas Zawirski, the historian of philosophy and aesthetics Tatarkiewicz, and the mathematical logicians such as Mostowski and Szaniawski. (shrink)

The Polish School of Logic flourished in the period 1920-1939. Philosophically, it was influenced by Kazimierz Twardowski, professor at the University of Lwow (now Lviv in Ukraine), who established the Lwow-Warsaw School, to which the mentioned logical group belonged. Twardowski claimed that logic is very important in every kind of human activity, professional as well as private. Hence, every argument should be clearly formulated and proceed by correct inferential rules. These postulates involved semiotics, formal logic, and methodology of (...) science — that is, logica sensu largo. This position was accepted by Twardowski’s most distinguished students, such as Jan Łukasiewicz, Stanisław Leśniewski, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, and Tadeusz Kotarbiński, who graduated before 1914, as well as the next generation of logicians and philosophers, particularly by Alfred Tarski. Although all these people considered logic, philosophy, and science as completely neutral with respect to politics and ideology, they treated logical skills as indispensable in political activities. In philosophical specialized terminology, Polish logicians regarded logic as a weapon against irrationalism. This position was also represented by Polish logicians who did not belong to the group of Twardowski’s students. (shrink)

Modern philosophy has benefited immensely from the intelligence and sensitivity, the creative and critical energies, and the lucidity of Polish scholars. Their investigations into the logical and methodological founda­ tions of mathematics, the physical and biological sciences, ethics and esthetics, psychology, linguistics, economics and jurisprudence, and the social sciences - all are marked by profound and imaginative work. To the centers of empiricist philosophy of science in Vienna, Berlin and Cambridge during the first half of this century, one always (...) added the great school of analytic and methodological studies in Warsaw and Lw6w. To the world centers of Marxist theoretical practice in Berlin, Moscow, Paris, Rome and elsewhere, one must add the Poland of the same era, from Ludwig Krzywicki (1859-1941) onward. (From our preface to Wiatr [1979p. Other movements also have been distinctive in Poland. Phenomenology was developed in the impressive school of Roman Ingarden at Cracow, semiotics from the early work of the philosopher and psychologist Kazimierz Twardowski at Lw6w in the 1890's, with masterful develop­ ment by his disciples Kotarbinski and Ajdukiewicz onward, conceptual foundations of physics in the incisive methodological reflections of Marian Smoluchowski, and mathematical logic from Jan I:.ukasiewicz and Stanislaw Lesniewski to Tarski, Mostowski, and many others. (shrink)

Ancien etudiant de Brentano et de Zimmerman, Kazimierz Twardowski, apres son election a la chaire de philosophie a Lvov en 1895, crea autour de lui un cercle d'etudiants et de collaborateurs exceptionnel, connu aujourd'hui sous le nom d'Ecole de Lvov-Varsovie. A mi-chemin entre Vienne et Cambridge, c'est a Lvov, et puis partiellement a Varsovie, que Jan Lukasiewicz, Stanislaw Lesniewski, Alfred Tarski, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Tadeusz Kotarbinski et bien d'autres encore, repenserent dans un esprit d'analyse les questions fondamentales de (...) la philosophie du langage, de la logique, de la philosophie des sciences et des mathematiques. Plus qu'une simple traduction, ce livre est une version revisee de la monographie desormais classique que Jan Wolenski, connu pour ses travaux non seulement en histoire de la philosophie analytique, mais aussi en epistemologie et en theorie de la verite, a consacree a l'Ecole de Lvov-Varsovie. (shrink)

Kazimierz Twardowski was renowned as an outstanding philosopher, teacher, and organizer of academic life. No less famous was his style of work, depicted in many recollections of his students. In the paper, I present three aspects of good mental work: a) stoic inspiration for Kazimierz Twardowski’s style of work, b) the place of the techniques of mental work in the program of pragmatic logic according to the views of Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz and Tadeusz Kotarbiński, and c) selected contemporary approaches consistent with (...) the direction provided by the Lvov-Warsaw School. By exploring a new perspective in the study of good mental work by linking it to the ancient philosophy of life as well as to the most recent developments in the theory of good mental work, the paper reveals unexplored insights into the tradition of the Lvov-Warsaw School, demonstrating its significance, depth, and relevance to modern times. (shrink)

This volume contains 17 papers from the pre-war period of the famous Polish School of Logic. Only two of the papers have appeared in English before and most of them had been inaccessible to the philosophical reader-at-large. An introduction by T Kotarbiński and the reprint of the first six sections of the well-known book by Z Jordan The Development of Mathematical Logic and of Logical Positivism in Poland between the Two Wars provide the reader with the necessary historical perspective.

Kazimierz Twardowski was the founder of the Lvov-Warsaw School, one of the greatest phenomena in the European culture. The School had its representatives in all scientific disciplines, logic and mathematics including. Among his pupils are such great figures of European philosophy like: Jan Łukasiewicz, Stanisław Leśniewski, Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Władysław Tatarkiewicz and Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz. The paper presents his life and various fields of his rich activity, as well as the list of his main works and the greatest achievements in (...) philosophy. He is best known in the world as the author of the distinction presentation-object-content, act-product, as well as the supporter of the postulate of clarity of thought and speech and the critic of psychologism, relativity of truth, symbolomania and pragmatophobia in science. (shrink)

Lesniewski’s ontology was one of the most inspiring aspects of Polish philosophy in the 20th century. I would like to reveal two original ways of thinking about names present in Polish pre-war philosophy and inspired by Lesniewski’s ideas, i.e. Kotarbinski’s reism and Ajdukiewicz’s criticism of the latter. It seems obvious, at least in texts of the philosophers quoted above, that the question of names was hiding much deeper quarrels. Although Kotarbinski’s and Ajdukiewicz’s positions were not in radical opposition, (...) several disagreements between them were very fruitful regarding their respective works. This paper gives an overview of their respective contributions to logic presented against the background of their philosophical positions. (shrink)

English summary: Jan Lukasiewicz (1878-1956) was one of the most important members of the Lwow-Warsaw school of logic. The thirteen translated articles in this volume demonstrate the protean form of Lukasiewiczs work, from his texts on Aristotle and the principle of non-contradiction and syllogistics to modal logic, intuitionism, and multivalent logics. The articles show in particular his preoccupations with logical precision and the problem of human liberty. French description: Avec Kazimierz Twardowski, Stanislaw Lesniewski et Alfred Tarski, le logicien et (...) philosophe polonais Jan Lukasiewicz (1878-1956) est l'un des membres les plus importants de l'Ecole de Lvov-Varsovie. Celebre pour ses ouvrages consacres a Aristote, notamment sur le principe de non-contradiction et sur la syllogistique, il a egalement publie des articles majeurs sur la logique propositionnelle, la logique modale, l'intuitionnisme et les logiques multivalentes, dont il fut l'un des fondateurs. Enfin, il a contribue a faire reconnaitre l'importance des travaux en logique de l'ecole megarico-stoicienne, trop longtemps eclipses par ceux d'Aristote sur la syllogistique. Mais Lukasiewicz ne fut pas seulement un logicien et un historien brillant, il s'engagea aussi dans les polemiques philosophiques de son temps. Il defendit ainsi la methode logique en philosophie. Proche sur ce point des membres du Cercle de Vienne, il ne rejetait pas pour autant les questions metaphysiques, commecelle du determinisme qui l'occupa toute sa vie. Les treize articles de ce recueil, fruit d'un travail collectif de traduction, ont pour ambition de montrer le caractere proteiforme de l'oeuvre de Lukasiewicz, preoccupe autant par la precision logique que par le probleme de la liberte humaine. (shrink)

Contains papers from a November 1995 conference held in Eastern Europe, celebrating the centenary of the Lvov-Warsaw school of analytic philosophy. Papers deal with all directions of research undertaken by Polish analytic philosophers. Special attention is paid to logic and comparisons with other philosophical movements, particularly with brentanism. Contains sections on history and comparisons, the ideas of Lesniewski, philosophy of language, logic and the foundations of mathematics, logic and philosophy, and the ontology, epistemology, and philosophy of science. (...) No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

The thesis of the paper holds that some future developments of argumentation theory may be inspired by the rich logico-methodological legacy of the Lvov–Warsaw School (LWS), the Polish research movement that was most active from 1895 to 1939. As a selection of ideas of the LWS which exploit both formal and pragmatic aspects of the force of argument, we present: Ajdukiewicz’s account of reasoning and inference, Bocheński’s analyses of superstitions or dogmas, and Frydman’s constructive approach to legal (...) interpretation. This paper does not aim at exhaustive elaboration of any of these topics or their usefulness in current discussions within argumentation theory. Rather, we intend to indicate chosen directions of a potentially fruitful research program for the emerging Polish School of Argumentation which would consist in application of methods and conceptions elaborated by the LWS to selected open problems of contemporary research on argumentation. (shrink)

“The influence of [Kazimierz] Twardowski on modern philosophy in Poland is all-pervasive. Twardowski instilled in his students a passion for clarity [. . .] and seriousness. He taught them to regard philosophy as a collaborative effort, a matter of disciplined discussion and argument, and he encouraged them to train themselves thoroughly in at least one extra-philosophical discipline and to work together with scientists from other fields, both inside Poland and internationally. This led above all [. . .] to collaborations with (...) mathematicians, so that the Lvov school of philosophy would gradually evolve into the Warsaw school of logic [. . .]. Twardowski taught his students, too, to respect and to pursue serious research in the history of philosophy, an aspect of the tradition of philosophy on Polish territory which is illustrated in such disparate works as [Jan] Łukasiewicz’s ground-breaking monograph on the law of non-contradiction in Aristotle and [Władysław] Tatarkiewicz’s highly influential multi-volume histories of philosophy and aesthetics. [. . .] The term ‘Polish philosophy’ is a misnomer [. . .] for Polish philosophy is philosophy per se; it is part and parcel of the mainstream of world philosophy – simply because [. . .] it meets international standards of training, rigour, professionalism and specialization.”– Barry Smith, “Why Polish Philosophy does Not Exist”. (shrink)

The philosophical-psychological Lvov-Warsaw School, derived from the philosophical tradition of Franz Brentano, developed his concept of intentionality for many years in an original way. This is particularly evident in Kazimierz Twardowski’s theory of actions and products and Tadeusz Tomaszewski’s theory of action. Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz’s semantic epistemology is also an important yet unfinished achievement (though less related to the issue of intentionality), in the light of which cognitive processes are organically embedded in cultural artefacts and, more specifically, in language. (...) Despite the extraordinary wealth of the Lvov-Warsaw School’s achievements, the theoretical findings of Twardowski and his disciples allow for the extraction of relatively consistent conclusions regarding the specifics of human cognition. Achievements of the Polish school of psychology seem to be important in the long ongoing discussion on the topic of the nature of cognitive processes and the mind. (shrink)

This book grew out of an international symposium, organized in September 1986 by the Austrian Cultural Institute in Warsaw in cooperation with the Polish Philosophical Society. The topic was: The Vienna Circle and the Lvov-Warsaw School. Since the two phil osophical trends existed in roughly the same time and were close ly related, it was one of the purposes of the symposium to investigate both similarities and thp differences. Some thirty people took part in the symposium, (...) nearly twenty contributions were presented and extensively discussed. The sym posium owed much to the excellent organization and warm hospital ity shown by Dr Georg Jankovic, the Director of the Austrian In stitute. As the person in charge of the scientific programme of the symposium, I take pleasure to acknowledge this debt. It so happened that a month later another symposium of a similar character was held. It took place in the University of Manchester, on the occasion of the centenary of the births of Stanislaw Lesniewski, Tadeusz Kotarbiflski and Wladyslaw Tatarkie wicz. Some papers read at the Manchester symposium form a part of the present volume. It was not possible, for technical reasons (the time factor was one of them), to include in this book all the material from the two symposia. Certain contributions have appeared elsewhere (for instance, K. Szaniawski's 'Ajdukiewicz on Non-Deductive Inference' was published in Danish Yearbook of Philosophy, Vol. 23). On the other hand, certain papers have been written special ly for this volume. (shrink)

We classify two of Bertrand Russell's theories of events within the point-free ontology. The first of such approaches was presented informally by Russell in ‘The World of Physics and the World of Sense’ (Lecture IV in Our Knowledge of the External World of 1914). Based on this theory, Russell sketched ways to construct instants as collections of events. This paper formalizes Russell's approach from 1914. We will also show that in such a reconstructed theory, we obtain all axioms of Russell's (...) second theory from 1936 and all axioms of Thomason's theory of events from 1989. Russell's work certainly influenced the works of Stanisław Leśniewski, his student Alfred Tarski, and Czesław Lejewski – prominent members of the Lvov-Warsaw School (LWS). We see our work in the tradition of the research of Leśniewski and Tarski. Building on the technical tools developed in this environment and in the spirit of the traditional research of the LWS, we engage here, in particular, with two classic works by Russell on fundamental ontology. (shrink)

Kotarbiński is one of the leading figures in the Lvov-Warsaw school of Polish philosophy. We summarize the development of Kotarbiński’s thought from his early nominalism and ‘pansomatistic reism’ to the later doctrine of ‘temporal phases’. We show that the surface clarity and simplicity of Kotarbiński’s writings mask a number of profound philosophical difficulties, connected above all with the problem of giving an adequate account of the truth of contingent (tensed) predications. The paper will examine in particular the (...) attempts to resolve these difficulties on the part of Leśniewski. It will continue with an account of the relations of Kotarbińskian reism to the ontology of things or entia realia defended by the later Brentano. Kotarbiński’s identification of Brentano as a precursor of reism is, it will be suggested, at least questionable, and the paper will conclude with a more careful attempt to situate the Brentanian and Kotarbińskian ontologies within the spectrum of competing ontological views. (shrink)

Analytic description, according to members of the Lvov-Warsaw School like Czeżowski, Ajdukiewicz, Ossowska, Tarski is a powerful and an indispensable tool, not only in philosophy but also in any natural science – in psychology especially. It should be equally respected together with empirical analysis and even it is recommended that it should precede any further research. Therefore the book Analiza i konstrukcja: o metodach badania pojęć w Szkole Lwowsko-Warszawskiej [Analysis and construction: on the methods of researching concepts in (...) the Lvov-Warsaw School] can be recommended to philosophers as well as scientists. (shrink)

In this article, the author attempts to identify the sources of good and evil as undertaken by the Lvov-Warsaw School of Philosophy (LWSP) founded by Kazimierz Twardowski. Such attempts were undertaken by both Twardowski himself and his closest students and associates; Władysław Witwicki, Tadeusz Kotarbiński. Tadeusz Czeżowski, and Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz. The best-known approach is Kotarbiński’s independent ethics in which the author refers to Aristotle perceiving such potential in the characteristics of each individual as to distinguish elementary qualities in (...) the form of opposites including opposition to good and evil. According to this approach, man acts in an evil manner because he stops following the natural voice of his own heart and instead implements set proposals provided by external factors. In the opinion of the author, the proposals formulated within the LWSP can form the basis for a rational explanation of the atrocities committed during World War II which modern ethics, being focused on neutral metaethical issues, fails to do. (shrink)

The volume is a collection of essays about prominent Polish 20th century philosophers of science and scientists who were concerned with problems in the philosophy of science. The contribution made by Polish logicians, especially those from the Lvov-Warsaw School, like Lukasiewicz, Kotarbiński, Czeżowski or Ajdukiewicz, is already well known. One of the aims of the volume is to offer a broader perspective. The papers collected here are devoted to the work of such philosophers as Zawirski, Metallmann, (...) Dąmbska, Mehlberg, Szaniawski and Giedymin as well as to the work of such scientists as Smoluchowski, Fleck, Infeld and Chyliński. The introduction to the volume, written by the editor and Jacek Jadacki, presents an overview of the history of the Polish philosophy of science from the foundation of the Cracow Academy (in 1364) to the present. (shrink)

The problem of precise characterisation of traditional forms of reasoning applied in mathematics was independently investigated and successfully resolved by Jaśkowski and Gentzen in 1934. However, there are traces of earlier interests in this field exhibited by the members of the Lvov-Warsaw School. We focus on the results obtained by Jaśkowski and Leśniewski. Jaśkowski provided the first formal system of natural deduction in 1926. Leśniewski also demonstrated in some of his papers how to construct proofs in accordance with (...) intuitively correct principles. (shrink)

The paper examines the interplays between logic and politics in the Polish School of Logic starting from 1914. The Polish School of Logic flourished between 1920 and 1939. Philosophically, it was influenced by Kazimierz Twardowski (1866–1938). For Twardowski logic is fundamental for every kind of human activity, professional and private and this means that every argument should be formulated and proceed by correct inferential rules. These rules involve semiotics, formal logic and methodology of science. The paper shows how (...) this position was shared by Twardowski’s students, including Jan Łukasiewicz, Stanisław Leśniewski, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz and Tadeusz Kotrabiński, as well as by the next generation of logicians and philosophers and especially by Alfred Tarski. These authors considered logic, philosophy and science as completely neutral with respect to politics and ideology but they also considered logical skills as indispensable in political activities. (shrink)

The roots of the Lvov-Warsaw School can be traced back to Aristotle himself. But in later times we better put them into thinking GW Leibniz and who somehow inherited many of these ways of thinking, such as the philosopher and mathematician Bernhard Bolzano. Since he would pass the key figure of Franz Brentano, who had as one of his disciples to Kazimierz Twardowski, which starts with the brilliant Polish school of mathematics and philosophy dealt with. Among them, (...) one of the most interesting thinkers must be Jan Lukasiewicz, the father of many-valued logic.Jan Łukasiewicz began teaching at the University of Lvov, and then at Warsaw, but after World War II must to continue in Dublin. Some questions may be very astonishing in the CV of Łukasiewicz. For instance, that a firstly Polish Minister of Education in Paderewski cabinet, into the new Polish Republic, and also Rector for two times at Warsaw University, was awarded with a Doctorate ‘Honoris Causa’ in spring 1936, at University of Münster, into the maximum of effervescency of Nazism in Germany. The explanation must be their good relation with a very good friend, the former theologian, and then logician, Heinrich Schölz, who was the first Chairman of Mathematical Logic in German universities.Łukasiewicz firstly studied Law, and then Mathematics and Philosophy in Lvov. His doctoral supervisor was Kazimierz Twardowski, and in 1902 he obtain his Ph. D. title with a very special mention: ‘sub auspiciis Imperatoris’. Also he received a doctorate ring with diamonds from the Kaiser of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Franz Joseph I.From 1902, Łukasiewicz was employed as a private teacher, and also as a desk in the Universitary Library of Lvov. So it was until 1904 when he obtained a scholarship to study abroad. He defends his ‘Habilitationschrift’ in 1906, entitled “Analysis and construction of the concept of cause”. This permits to give university courses. His first lectures were on the Algebra of Logic, according to the recent translation to Polish of this book of the French logician Louis Couturat.Between 1902 and 1906, Lukasiewicz continued his studies in the universities of Berlin and Leuwen. In 1906, by his ‘Habilitationschrift’, he obtain the qualification as university professor at Lvov. And the, in 1911, he was appointed as associate professor in his ‘alma mater’.Jan Łukasiewicz was also very active in historical research on logic, giving a new and up-to-date interpretation of Aristotle’s syllogism and of the Stoics’ propositional calculus. According to Scholz, the better pages on history of logic are due to him. And also, as Arianna Betti says, “Jan Lukasiewicz is first and foremost associated with the rejection of the Principle of Bivalence and the discovery of Many-Valued Logic.”The discovery of MVL by Lukasiewicz was in 1918, a little earlier than Emil Leon Post. According to Jan Wolenski, “although Post’s remarks were parenthetical and extremely condensed, Lukasiewicz explained his intuitions and motivations carefully and at length. He was guided by considerations about future contingents and the concept of possibility”. So, he introduces, firstly, three-valued logic, then four-valued logic, generalized to logics with an arbitrary finite number of veritative values, and finally, to logics with a countably infinite-valued number of such values.Very noteworthy is his treatment of the history of logic in the light of the new formal logic. Thus, not only he addressed the issue of future contingents departing from Aristotle, but also put in value logic of the Stoics, at least so far taken. In fact, Heinrich Scholz said, rightly, that Lukasiewicz had written the most lucid pages on the history of logic. (shrink)

The triangle in general or the man as such are general objects. These are objects that possess the properties common to all the individual objects in their range. Stanisław Leśniewski and Tadeusz Kotarbiński, two Polish philosophers and logicians belonging to the Lvov-Warsaw School, produced several proofs aiming to show that such objects are impossible because the principles that govern them lead to a contradiction. In this paper I first clarify the structure of their proofs. Then I suggest (...) a way to elude their conclusion. In order to do that I use two Meinongian distinctions: the distinction between complete and incomplete objects, on the one hand, and the distinction between nuclear and extranuclear properties, on the other hand. I claim first that general objects are incomplete objects, i.e. they do not satisfy the ontological principle of the excluded middle, and second that the principle that governs the relations between the properties of general objects and the properties of the individual objects in their range should be restricted to nuclear properties. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present and discuss main philosophical ideas concerning logic and mathematics of a significant but forgotten Polish philosopher Benedykt Bornstein. He received his doctoral degree with Kazimierz Twardowski but is not included into the Lvov–Warsaw School of Philosophy founded by the latter. His philosophical views were unique and quite different from the views of main representatives of Lvov–Warsaw School. We shall discuss Bornstein’s considerations on the philosophy of geometry, on (...) the infinity, on the foundations of set theory and his polemics with Stanisław Leśniewski as well as his conception of a geometrization of logic, of the categorial logic and of the mathematics of quality. (shrink)

Tadeusz Kotarbiński (1886–1981) was a prominent member of the Lvov‑Warsaw School. He is most famous as the founder of praxiology, but his contribution to ontology and semantics was significant as well. Kotarbiński introduced the doctrine of reism (in Elementy [Elements], in 1929). Ontological reism is a radical form of nominalism; it claims that there are no other objects than things or concrete individuals. Semantic reism claims that meaningful statements have to contain only concrete terms (names of things). Other (...) terms are apparent or “onomatoids”, and they should be eliminable from meaningful statements. In his doctrine, Kotarbiński appealed to Leśniewski’s Ontology (calculus of names). He also advocated a version of the classical correspondence theory of truth (without assuming the existence of facts, states of affairs, and sets). He combined this view with his reism, which accepts physicalism (all psychic beings are physical objects). This position differed from the Vienna Circle, where the correspondence theorists (Moritz Schlick) were phenomenalists and the physicalists (Otto Neurath) supported the coherence theory. (shrink)

This article explores the question of how the members of the Lvov-Warsaw School promoted values that can be regarded as components of so-called logical culture. The author argues that these values are strictly connected with science. With references to Łukasiewicz, Czeżowski, and Kotarbiński,the article explores how values shape the logical culture and determines society as directed towards values. The article connects the meta-philosophical perspective with the philosophical one.

Logical and philosophical literature provides different classifications of reasoning. In the Polish literature on the subject, for instance, there are three popular ones accepted by representatives of the Lvov-Warsaw School: Jan Łukasiewicz, Tadeusz Czeżowski and Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (Ajdukiewicz in Logika pragmatyczna [Pragmatic Logic]. PWN, Warsaw (1965, 2nd ed. 1974). Translated as: Pragmatic Logic. Reidel & PWN, Dordrecht, 1975). The author of this paper, having modified those classifications, distinguished the following types of reasoning: (1) deductive and (2) (...) non-deductive, and additionally two types of them in each of the two, depending on the manner of combining their premises with the conclusion through the relation of classical logical entailment. Consequently, the four types of reasoning: unilateral deductive (incl. its sub-types: deductive inference and proof), bilateral deductive (incl. complete induction), and reductive (incl. the sub-types: explanation and verification), logically nonvaluable (incl. inference by analogy, statistic inference), correspond to four operators of derivability. They are defined formally on the ground of Tarski’s axiomatic theory of deductive systems, by means of the consequence operation _Cn_ (Tarski in Monatshefte Math Phys 37:361–404, 1930a, C R Soc Sci Lett Vars 23:22–29, 1930b). Also, certain metalogical properties of these operators are given, as well as their relations with Tarski’s consequence operations $Cn^+$ ( $Cn^+ = Cn$ ) and dual consequences $Cn^{-1}$ (Słupecki in Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego Seria B Nr 3:33–40, 1959, Słupecki et al. in Stud Log 29:76–123, 1971, Wybraniec-Skardowska, in: Wybraniec-Skardowska, Bryll (eds) Z badań nad teorią zdań odrzuconych [Studies in the Theory of Rejected Propositions], Series B, Studia i Monografie, Zeszyty Naukowe Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej w Opolu, Opole, 1969), and $Cn^-$ (Wójcicki in Bull Sect Log 2(2):54–57, 1973)). (shrink)

1. First, a short anecdote. In the mid-1980s, Professor Jerzy Pogonowski gave a series of lectures entitled The Lvov-Warsaw School at the Institute of Philosophy at the Adam Mickiewicz University i...

The position of Polish informatics, as well in research as in didactic, has its roots in achievements of Polish mathematicians of Warsaw School and logicians of Lvov-Warsaw School. Jan Lukasiewicz is considered in the world of computer science as the most famous Polish logician. The parenthesis-free notation, invented by him, is known as PN (Polish Notation) and RPN (Reverse Polish Notation). Lukasiewicz created many-valued logic as a separate subject. The idea of multi-valueness (...) is applied to hardware design (many-valued or fuzzy switching, analog computer). Many-valued approach to vague notions and commonsense reasoning is the method of expert systems, databases and knowledge-based systems. Stanis3aw Jaokowski's system of natural deduction is the base of systems of automatic deduction and theorem proving. He created a system of paraconsistent logic. Such logics are used in AI. Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz with his categorial grammar participated in the development of formal grammars, the field significant for programming languages. Andrzej Grzegorczyk had an important contribution to the development of the theory of recursiveness. (shrink)

This collection celebrates the centenary of the Lvov-Warsaw school, established by Kazimierz Twardowski in Lvov in 1895.

Czesław Lejewski studied in Warsaw before the Second World War, after which he settled in England and resumed an academic career, becoming Professor of Philosophy in Manchester. His writings, all articles, continue and extend the ideas of his teachers, especially Stanisław Leśniewski in logic and Tadeusz Kotarbiński in metaphysics.

The volume aims to show the variety of research currents of the Lvov-Warsaw School and the ways in which these currents are developed today. The content of the book is divided into three parts: “Logic and Semiotics”, “Metaphysics and Ontology”, and “Psychology and Sociology”.

In the period after the First World War when the various national-ideological “truths” that led to it were not well resolved which resulted in the Second World War, one of the greatest world crises occurs. In those turbulent times, one philosopher renounces his national identity (changes his religion and name), wanting not to save himself from an evil world that is emerging but to join the creation of a completely new world – the world of modern logic. This man is (...) Alfred Tarski, whom many recognize as “the man who defined truth”, linking him to the formulation of the distinction between object and metalanguage. In the paper, I argue with historians of philosophy who claim that this distinction was first set by the logician and philosopher of the Lvov-Warsaw school Stanislaw Leśniewski (whose Tarski was the only doctoral student) accusing Tarski of violating professional laws without attributing the authorship of this distinction to Leśniewski. I show that this is not true and I cite the places where Tarski clearly emphasizes Leśniewski ‘s contribution. (shrink)

Słownik języka polskiego PWN odnotowuje m.in. trzy znaczenia słowa „fenomen”: (1) rzadkie, niezwykłe zjawisko; (2) osoba wyjątkowa, niezwykle uzdolniona; (3) fakt empiryczny będący punktem wyjścia badań naukowych. W tytule nie chodzi o „fenomen” w sensie drugim, chociaż do Szkoły Lwowsko-Warszawskiej należało wiele osób wyjątkowych i niezwykle uzdolnionych, do których z powodzeniem można odnosić słowo „fenomen” w tym sensie. Tytułowy zwrot „Fenomen Szkoły Lwowsko-Warszawskiej” sygnalizuje natomiast, z jednej strony, że książka zdaje sprawę z badań naukowych nad pewnym złożonym „faktem empirycznym” – (...) nad pewną formacją intelektualną wraz z jej dorobkiem. Z drugiej strony tytuł wskazuje na rzadkość i niezwykłość Szkoły: to, że była ona fenomenem nie tylko w dziejach Polski, lecz także w dziejach kultury in toto. Oto kilka faktów, które się na fenomen Szkoły – w tym drugim sensie – składają. Za początek Szkoły przyjmuje się rok 1895, kiedy jej założyciel, Kazimierz Twardowski, przybył z Wiednia do Lwowa i już wkrótce wypromował pierwszych doktorów. Wśród wychowanków (doktorantów) Twardowskiego było ponad dwudziestu przyszłych profesorów tytularnych, którzy w dwudziestoleciu międzywojennym zajęli większość katedr filozofii, logiki i psychologii, ale oddziałali także na inne dyscypliny – takie jak literaturoznawstwo, muzykologia, filologia klasyczna etc. Twardowski zmarł w 1938 roku, a za koniec Szkoły niektórzy przyjmują rok 1939 – istotnie II wojna światowa spowodowała spustoszenie w szeregach przedstawicieli Szkoły, a jeszcze silniejszy cios stanowił dla niej okres stalinizmu. Jednakże Kilka wybitnych postaci Szkoły – takich jak Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Tadeusz Czeżowski, Izydora Dąmbska, Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Stefan Swieżawski czy Władysław Tatarkiewicz – działało jeszcze wiele lat po wojnie, wychowując kolejne pokolenia w duchu właściwego Szkole antyirracjonalizmu. Wielu spośród autorów tekstów do niniejszego tomu to przedstawiciele młodszych pokoleń Szkoły Lwowsko-Warszawskiej sensu largo. Spoiwem Szkoły był nie pewien zespół idei, który wyznawaliby jej członkowie, lecz pewne postulaty metodologiczne oraz pewien zestaw wartości, które były w Szkole akceptowane przez kolejne pokolenia. O tych postulatach metodologicznych i o tym zestawie wartości mówią szczegółowo autorzy tekstów tu zamieszczonych. Ogromnemu wpływowi Szkoły na kulturę polską towarzyszyła recepcja wyników osiąganych przez jej członków za granicą. Naszym „towarem eksportowym” była szeroko rozumiana logika (logiki wielowartościowe i metalogika Łukasiewicza, gramatyka kategorialna Ajdukiewicza, koncepcja prawdy Tarskiego). Wiele osiągnięć członków Szkoły w innych dziedzinach zagranica odkrywa dla siebie dopiero dziś i wyniki te budzą podziw u tych, którzy się z nimi stykają. Ideą stojącą za powstaniem „Fenomenu Szkoły Lwowsko-Warszawskiej” była chęć ukazania Szkoły w jak najszerszej perspektywie, także przez pryzmat mniej znanych, choć ważnych postaci i osiągnięć. Ze wstępu Książkę można zamówić tutaj: https://ksiegarnia.academicon.pl/glowna/187-fenomen-szkoly-lwowsko-warszawskiej-miekka-oprawa--97883 62475193.html. (shrink)

This article discusses selected conceptions of aesthetic value formulated by representatives of the Lvov-Warsaw School, including Kazimierz Twardowski, Władysław Witwicki, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Tadeusz Czeżowski, Mieczysław Walfisz-Wallis, Stanisław Ossowski, Leopold Blaustein, and Tadeusz Kotarbiński.

The article recalls shortly the early story of cooperation between the already existing Lvov philosophical school, headed by Twardowski, and the just then establishing Warsaw mathematical school, headed by Sierpiski. After that recollection the article proceeds to contributions made by men influenced by the two schools. Most prominent of them was Alfred Tarski whose work in those times, concentrated mainly upon the theory of deduction, axiom of choice, cardinal arithmetic, and measure problem, has been described in some detail.

The influence of Kasimir Twardowski on modern Polish philosophy is all-pervasive. As is well known, almost all important 20th century Polish philosophers went through the hard training of his courses in Lvov. Twardowski instilled in his students an enduring concern for clarity and rigour. He taught them to regard philosophy as a collaborative effort, a matter of disciplined discussion and argument. And he encouraged them to work together with scientists from other disciplines — above all with psychologists, (...) and also with mathematicians — so that the Lvov school of philosophy would gradually evolve into the Warsaw school of logic. (shrink)

The influence of Kasimir Twardowski on modern Polish philosophy is all-pervasive. As is well known, almost all important 20th century Polish philosophers went through the hard training of his courses in Lvov. Twardowski instilled in his students an enduring concern for clarity and rigour. He taught them to regard philosophy as a collaborative effort, a matter of disciplined discussion and argument. And he encouraged them to work together with scientists from other disciplines — above all with psychologists, (...) and also with mathematicians — so that the Lvov school of philosophy would gradually evolve into the Warsaw school of logic. (shrink)

A Bilingual International Conference on the History and Actuality of the Polish Contribution, from the Lvov-Warsaw school to phenomenology, to Twentieth Century Philosophy. Colloque international bilingue portant sur l'histoire et l'actualité de la contribution polonaise, de l'école de Lvov-Varsovie à la phénoménologie, à la philosophie du vingtième siècle.