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”.

It is not surprising for us that thought experiments are so popular among phi-losophers and among readers of some philosophical journals.

The author of the paper critically analyzes a quasi-theory of future contingents (PFC) given by Marcin Tkaczyk and proposes his own explication of its theses and terms. The author makes it by introducing operational definitions of temporal and modal concepts, distinguishing between the causal and functional determination, discussing the status of the principle of bivalence, and replacing Tkaczyk’s theses by their new formulations. As a result, the author states, among other things, that (contrary to Tkaczyk) there is no contradiction between (...) the thesis about the opened future and the thesis about divine omniscience, because it requires the causal (but not functional as it is a case) determination between a true proposition and its determined fact. The author also shows that Tkaczyk’s examples of the retroactive causes are not an accurate solution of the antinomy because they are, at most, the examples of the factors which change the picture of the past but not the past itself. (shrink)

Main headings: Introduction: Philosophy and precision. - Part I. Being and essence. - Part II. Truth and nonsense. - Part III. Understanding and silence. - Conclusion: Science and creation.

Inquiries concerning the theory of imperatives and norms prosecuted in Poland in the 20th century covered practically the whole scope of this theory. In a uniform conceptual scheme, the paper shows main results of this research done mostly within the Lvov-Warsaw School tradition. It begins with presenting the Polish theoreticians’ approach to three correlated theoretical situations containing our preferences (opposed to impulses, decisions and tendencies), accepted values and imposed obligations. The second step is discussing their views on means of verbalising (...) these situations, i.e. by help of imperatives, evaluations and norms (opposed to consultatives, instructions and optatives) correspondingly. The paper is closed with examining the Polish logicians’ trials of reconstruction of imperative-normative argumentation. (shrink)

Our conception of thought experiment may be summarized as follows.

The article proposes some extension of the concept of reasoning that includes also operations on interrogative sentences and imperative sentences , or rather on their contents — interrogations and prescriptions. Key words REASONING.

The Lvov-Warsaw School was one of the most important currents in the 20th-century analytical movement. Kazimierz Twardowski, a student Franz Brentano and a professor of philosophy in Lvov, was the founder and at the same time an outstanding representative of the School. The papers included into the volume present comprehensively Twardowski’s views and indicate what his lasting contribution to philosophy consists of.

Izydora Dąmbska was one of the most creative women-representatives of the Lvov-Warsaw School. The paper presents her extraordinary personality, life, as well as the list of her main works and the greatest scientific achievements. The main area of her interest was the logic of natural language, methodology and the history of Greek semiotics. She gave meticulous analysis of the relation between conventionalism on one hand, and relativism, scepticism and agnosticism on the other. In semiotics, she proposed new approach to the (...) problem of empty names and material implication, of the correct definition of truth, as well as of pragmatic functions of silence and namelessness. In methodology, her reconstruction of the notion of scientific laws is of great importance. (shrink)

Izydora Dąmbska was a Polish philosopher; a student of Kazimierz Twardowski, and his last assistant. The present volume includes twenty eight translations of her representative papers.

The volume contains almost thirty papers by Kazimierz Twardowski, the founder of the Lvov-Warsaw School. The papers are published in English for the first time. The papers concern fundamental problems of philosophy: the methods of philosophizing, the boundary of psychology and semiotics, the conceptual apparatus of metaphysics, ethical skepticism, the question of free will and ethical obligation, the aesthetics of music and so on. The systematic considerations are complemented by concise but excellent sketches of the philosophical views of Socrates, Aquinas, (...) Leibniz, Spencer, Nietzsche, and Bergson. (shrink)

The previous volume of the series Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science at Warsaw University---entitled Imperatives from Different Points of View---was the first result of the project Theory of Imperatives and Its Applications realized by the group composed by Anna Brożek, Jacek Jadacki and Berislav Žarnić. The project was supported by the Foundation for Polish Science within the program Homing Plus. One of the most important points of this project was the International Symposium Imperatives in Theory and Practice which took (...) place in Warsaw, on the 18th and 19th May, 2012. The symposium was the meeting of many specialists in the domain of the theory of imperatives – from China, Croatia, Japan, Poland and The United States. Contents: Berislav Žarnić, Logical Root of Linguistic Commitment; Jacek Jadacki, Witwicki’s Square; Tomoyuki Yamada, On the Very Idea of Imperative Inference; Fengkui Ju, Semantics of Sentences in Mixed Moods of Indicative and Imperative; Piotr Kulicki & Robert Trypuz, Two Faces of Obligation; Bartosz Brożek, Types of Obligations; Anna Brożek, Functional Ambiguity of Imperatives; Anna Brożek, Logic of Prescriptions and Instruction; Aleksandra Horecka, Imperative Sentence as a Performative Sentence, which Refers to the Optative State of Affairs; Jakub Bazyli Motrenko, The Concept of Praxiological Directive; Maciej Witek, How to Establish Authority with Words: Imperative Utterances and Presupposition Accommodation; Wojciech Załuski, Remarks on the Lexical Order of Rawls’s Two Principles of Justice; Natalia Miklaszewska, Acts of Will as Convictions; Anna Brożek, Imperatives in the Gospel. (shrink)

The book is comprised of three components. The first component analyses the creative contribution to the theory of imperatives and norms provided by 20th-century Polish researchers. The second component summarizes their reflections and considerations. The third component is an anthology of the classic writings of Polish authors of the time; it constitutes an illustration of the first part and indicates that their research covered practically the whole scope of this theory. Author Jacek Jadacki (born 1946) is professor at Warsaw University. (...) His scholarly production includes approximately hundred works spanning almost every domain in philosophy: from logic, through ontology, epistemology, aesthetics and ethics, to the history of these disciplines. Among his more than twenty books are Possible Ontologies (with Zdzislaw Augustynek; 1993), From the Viewpoint of the Lvov-Warsaw School (2003), and Polish Analytical Philosophy (2009). His pupils include such well-known figures of modern Polish thought as Anna Brozek, Mariusz Grygianiec, Joanna Odrowaz-Sypniewska, and Mieszko Talasiewicz. (shrink)

With the help of six primitive predicates the author formulates twenty-seven basic ontological theses. The primitive terms used are referring to the so-called elementary ontic relations, which are not reducible to each other. These are: the relation of being a part, the relation of being localized, the relation of temporal precedence, and the epistemic relation - knowing that.

Punktem wyjścia rozważań są cztery hipotezy: dwie leksykalne, gramatyczna i historyczna: 1. Wyrażenie „rozumieć" jest polisemem i to podwójnie: a) wieloznacznością właściwą wielu predykatom mentalnym (tj. może mieć w szczególności sens aktualny, habitualny, sekwencyjny lub procesualny); b) wieloznacznością swoistą (tj. może w szczególności mieć sens intuicyjny, identyfikacyjny, indulgencyjny lub inskrypcyjny). 2. Wyrażenie „rozumieć” w sensie identyfikacyjnym występuje w kontekstach eliptycznych (może mieć wówczas sens esencjalny, strukturalny, funkcjonalny, kauzalny, kategorialny lub konceptualny). 3. Wszelkie (niemetaforyczne) konteksty i derywaty wyrażenia „rozumieć" dadzą się (...) sparafrazować za pomocą wprowadzonych rozróżnień. 4. Różnice zdań w sprawie rozumienia albo biorą się z pomieszania znaczeń, albo są empirycznie testowalne. Przedstawione hipotezy pozwalają usunąć nieporozumienia, dotyczące kolejno: argumentów relacji rozumienia, kategorii semantycznej „rozumienia", relacji między poszczególnymi pojęciami „rozumienia" oraz. między rozumieniem a innymi funkcjami mentalnymi, warunkami poprawności definicji „rozumienia konceptualnego", na koniec kryteriów kompetencji językowej. (shrink)