Polish logical studies from an informal logic perspective

The paper emphasizes significant resemblances between the Informal Logic Initiative and the Lvov-Warsaw School (LWS) – the Polish philosophical movement (1895-1939), the rise of which is associated with “the Golden Age of Science and Letters”. The correspondence between informal logic and the logical studies of the LWS will be explored by discussing their subject-matter, goals, and methods. The project focused on applying logical studies of the LWS in analyzing and assessing arguments will be proposed

Rational Cognition and Approximate Truth in the Lvov-Warsaw School

The Lvov-Warsaw School’s logistic anti-irrationalism, especially as it has been examined in the works of Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Izydora Dąmbska, and Jan Woleński, offered an intellectually distinct alternative to the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle. However, the Lvov-Warsaw School’s attempt to critique the Franco-German currents of mysticism and romanticism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially in the works of Henri Bergson, open it up to the question of whether its members fully appreciated the consequences of accepting that rational cognition is abstract and schematic. We argue that the abstract nature of rational cognition provides reasons to countenance approximate truth; but doing so seems to put the goal of knowledge out of reach. The consequences of these arguments seem not to have been anticipated in the works of Ajdukiewicz, Dąmbska, or Woleński, and point to a new direction for research about the achievability of certain ambitious goals of the Lvov-Warsaw School’s logistic anti-irrationalism

Analytical philosophy of history in Poland : inspirations and interpretations

Analytic philosophy is sometimes understood in opposition to continental tradition. In this article, I would like to show that a Lviv‑Warsaw School shared many fundamental traits with analytic orientation. In afterwar Poland, this tradition clashed with the dialectical materialism that lacks strong scientific tradition but had the full support of the communist party. This situation produced a unique scenario in which the methodology of science could strive as a mainstream area. A crucial role was attributed to the theory of history

The Golden Age of Polish Philosophy: Kazimierz Twardowski's Philosophical Legacy

Collection : Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, 16. Actes du colloque, Montréal, 23-26 septembre 2004This volume portrays the Polish or Lvov-Warsaw School, one of the most influential schools in analytic philosophy, which, as discussed in the thorough introduction, presented an alternative "working" picture of the unity of science. The school was founded by a phenomenologist, Kazimierz Twardowski, who trained a team of researchers that included some of the most important logicians and philosophers of the history of analytical philosophy, such as Tarski, Lesniewski and Lukasiewicz. The Polish School represented some of the most important trends in philosophy -- aristotelism; the history and philosophy of science; linguistics; the philosophy of logic and mathematics -- and offered an opportunity for all these philosophical disciplines to interact in a natural and fruitful way