Polish Philosophy

10.1093/mind/fzl659p. 688, line 10:for So if is a theorem of M read So if ϕ is a theorem of Mp. 688, line 13:for where ϕ* is the result of indexing the terms of ϕ* to Mread where ϕ* is the result of indexing the terms of ϕ to M.

We present a new axiomatization of the non-associative Lambek calculus. We prove that it takes polynomial time to reduce any non-associative Lambek categorial grammar to an equivalent context-free grammar. Since it is possible to recognize a sentence generated by a context-free grammar in polynomial time, this proves that a sentence generated by any non-associative Lambek categorial grammar can be recognized in polynomial time.

Tekst jest wyborem fragmentów przypisywanych Janowi Potockiemu. Jean Potocki, mistrz ironii, twardo usadowiony w nieuchwytnym na pozór miejscu pomiędzy oświeceniem a romantyzmem, pozostaje najczęściej plagiatowanym autorem Europy. Zapewne przysłużył się pośmiertnie sprawie praw autorskich, ale i stało się tak, jakby oryginalność i płodność jego myśli była na tyle inna, że nie sposób przedstawić go inaczej jak wymazując jego imię, jeśli po prostu nie niszcząc. Choć historia jego francuskich i amerykańskich plagiatów jest wyczerpująco udokumentowana, nie istnieje jeszcze definitywne wydanie jego arcydzieła: (...) Rękopisu znalezionego w Saragossie, już w 1809 roku przełożonego po części na niemiecki, a w 1847, również w Lipsku, zapewne z udziałem Societas Jablonoviana, w całości na polski. W latach pięćdziesiątych XX wieku trud przywrócenia należnego mu miejsca podjęli R. Caillois, L. Kukulski, W. Has, Emanuel Rostworowski i Maria-Ewelina Żółtowska-Weintraub, której wciąż nieopublikowany doktorat stanowi najpełniejszą biografię hrabiego Jana, powiązaną z karierą bohatera Rękopisu. Skromny ów oficer gwardii walońskiej: Alfons van Worden, po wielu straszliwych próbach, które w gruncie rzeczy niczym innym dla niego nie były jak straszliwymi, teatralnie zaaranżowanymi opowieściami, awansował na gubernatora Saragossy, gdzie wiódł spokojny żywot troszcząc się o córeczkę swą Fatimę. […]. (shrink)

During the first semester of the academic year 1930/31 in the John Casimir University in Lvov Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz delivered a series of lectures on logical semantics. In eight of them, now published for the first time, he presents - in the very clear manner - his fractional method of identifying syntactic categories, and he shows how to use this method to eliminate the antynomies of classes, relations and properties. The Ajdukiewiczian method had been appreciated among logicians and it is considered (...) widely one of the starting points of so-called categorial grammars. (shrink)

Modern Polish philosophy has an impressive record as a powerful, innovating tradition, in many respects parallel to but independent of the development of analytical philosophy in Britain and America. Owing to an absence of adequate translations however, the work of its leading exponents has generally only been encountered second-hand. To remedy this, Quinton and Skolimowski have translated an introduction to philosophy written by Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, probably the outstanding representative of the generation. Problems and Theories of Philosophy surveys concisely and, so (...) far as possible, systematically the main problems in epistemology and metaphysics and the most historically important of the solutions proposed to them. The book still reads freshly and displays many of the characteristic intellectual virtues of Polish philosophy: clarity and straightforwardness of presentation combined with a bracing rigour and precision. It is in no sense parochial to its Polish origins and can stand beside the classic English introductions to the subject as stimulating and lucid analysis of perennial philosophical problems and strategies. (shrink)

The author discusses the subjective and irreproducible character of the method of direct experience, which is the ground of the acceptance of observation statements. It is also shown how this method forms a part of the method of arriving at universal statements on the basis of experience without depriving the latter of its intersubjective and reproducible character.

Die Kritische Sozialtheorie sowie die kommunistische Herrschaftsphilosophie haben in der posthegelianischen Befreiungslehre ihren Ursprung. Die Kritische Theorie versuchte diesen Denkansatz gegen seine totalitären Konsequenzen anzuwenden. Dieselben Weltdeutungschemata, die man an der Sowjetideologie anstößig fand, galten aber als akzeptabel, sobald man nur zur Kritik der westlichen Industriegesellschaft überging. Der Hauptpunkt der neomarxistischen Kritik des Sowjetsystems bestand darin, daß man die besondere institutionelle Form, in der der reale Sozialismus das Heil zu verwirklichen beanspruchte, in Frage stellte, ohne andere Lösungen der institutionellen Probleme (...) anzubieten oder das zugrundeliegende Denkprogramm aufzugeben, in dessen Kontext diese Probleme durchaus legitim gestellt werden konnten. Die relativen Leistungen der Kritischen Theorie sind in ihren sozial-politischen Folgen zu suchen, u. zw. darin, daß sie zwei Grundlagen der totalitären Ideologie, von der die Legitimierung des Gesellschaftssystems herrühte, erschütterte: (1) Verfügung über die Tradition; (2) Verfügung über die Sprache, in der über heilsrelevante Fragen gesprochen wurde. /// Both critical theory and communist philosophy arise from the posthegelian theory of salvation. Critical theory undertook the effort to preserve the hard core of this theoretical background and at the same time to criticize by its means the totalitarian consequences the communist ideology had derived from it. In effect, the very same patterns of thought which critical theory believed to denounce as instruments of totalitarian manipulation were accepted as soon as they proved useful to contest advanced industrial society and its world view. The crucial point of the new-leftist criticism of the Stalinist ideology was the rejection of a central claim of the latter according to which the salvation predicted in the leftist-revolutionary tradition has found its actual fulfilment in the institutional framework of the Soviet state. Challenging this claim, the Neomarxists neither abandoned this tradition nor offered another solution to the institutional problems which result from it. The relative achievements of critical theory lie in the damage it has caused to the two foundations of the totalitarian ideology, i.e.: (1) its authority over tradition and (2) its authority over language. (shrink)