In the present paper the well-known Gödels – Churchs argument concerning the undecidability of logic (of the first order functional calculus) is exhibited in a way which seems to be philosophically interestingfi The natural numbers are not used. (Neither Chinese Theorem nor other specifically mathematical tricks are applied.) Only elementary logic and very simple set-theoretical constructions are put into the proof. Instead of the arithmetization I use the theory of concatenation (formalized by Alfred Tarski). This theory proves to be an (...) appropriate tool. The decidability is defined directly as the property of graphical discernibility of formulas. (shrink)

Recent years have seen the appearance of many English-language hand books of logic and numerous monographs on topical discoveries in the foundations of mathematics. These publications on the foundations of mathematics as a whole are rather difficult for the beginners or refer the reader to other handbooks and various piecemeal contribu tions and also sometimes to largely conceived "mathematical fol klore" of unpublished results. As distinct from these, the present book is as easy as possible systematic exposition of the now (...) classical results in the foundations of mathematics. Hence the book may be useful especially for those readers who want to have all the proofs carried out in full and all the concepts explained in detail. In this sense the book is self-contained. The reader's ability to guess is not assumed, and the author's ambition was to reduce the use of such words as evident and obvious in proofs to a minimum. This is why the book, it is believed, may be helpful in teaching or learning the foundation of mathematics in those situations in which the student cannot refer to a parallel lecture on the subject. This is also the reason that I do not insert in the book the last results and the most modem and fashionable approaches to the subject, which does not enrich the essential knowledge in founda tions but can discourage the beginner by their abstract form. A. G. (shrink)

W artykule proponuje się aksjomatyzację fragmentu klasycznej logiki zdań, który zostaje nazwany logiką niesymplifikacyjną. Nazwa pochodzi stąd, że unika się w nim, jak przypuszcza pewna ilość badaczy – wskazanych w tekście – paradoksalnych własności klasycznej implikacji i równoważności. Twierdzenie o niewyprowadzalności tez paradoksalnych nie jest jeszcze definitywnie udowodnione. Ale cały bieg myśli wydaje się interesujący z filozoficznego punktu widzenia ze względu na możliwość odróżnienia kilku rodzajów implikacji i równoważności.

The author reflects on the moral attitudes displayed by Poles fighting in the Warsaw Uprising. He believes that the sacrifice and selflessness with which Varsovians battled for their city had its roots in the general mentality of the Poles, who for generations had been raised in the spirit of “mutual and willing endowment”. He also notes that the noble ideals of the wartime generations have today been largely replaced by mercenary selfishness.

The author reflects on the moral attitudes displayed by Poles fighting in the Warsaw Uprising. He believes that the sacrifice and selflessness with which Varsovians battled for their city had its roots in the general mentality of the Poles, who for generations had been raised in the spirit of “mutual and willing endowment”. He also notes that the noble ideals of the wartime generations have today been largely replaced by mercenary selfishness.

The paper proposes a new definition of the conception of effectiveness . A good name for this version of effectiveness is discernibility. The definition is based on the fact that every computation may be reduced to the operation of discerning the fundamental symbols and concatenation of formulas. This approach to effectiveness allows us to formulate the proof of undecidability in such a way that arithmetization of the syntax may be replaced by the use of concatenation in metalogic.

Let us consider an arbitrary semantical relation. It holds between some linguistic entities and pieces of reality referred to. We may call it meaning. The controversy between psychologism and antipsychologism therefore may be exhibited as an ontological dilemma:Antipsychologism PsychologismThe relation of meaning is independent of human beings The relation of meaning is established by human beingsWhen we describe the meaning of words we do not need to refer to human behavior When we describe the meaning of words we need to (...) refer to human behaviorIt seems to be safe to assume that reality is not contradictory and a good description of reality cannot lead to the contradiction. All presentations of semantical antinomies rest on antipsychologistic description of semantical relations. Thus we can blame the contradictions called semantical antinomies on the antipsychologistic description. (shrink)

Some people approve of certain general rules of behavior, or some concrete cases. The others disapprove of or are indifferent to them. In this paper I suggest an axiom system which formalizes the use of these utterances. It may be considered as a special (individualistic) approach to deontic logic.