First published in 1967, Polish Analytical Philosophy presents the first comprehensive study of Polish analytical philosophy that has been written in Polish or English, traces the origin of the Polish analytical movement, it's development in the period between the World Wars, and its decline after the Second World War. The book shows that although inspired by the British movement and in close touch with the Vienna circle, Polish philosophy acquired its own distinctive character. Analytical philosophy in Poland was actively engaged in logic and language but tended rather to be interested in constructing philosophical doctrines which attempted to resolve traditional problems of ontology and epistemology. The author contrasts leading representatives of analytical philosophy in Britain and in Poland, and his study will be a valuable addition to the literature of the analytical trend in Europe.

This book examines the tension between formal and informal methods in philosophy. The rise of analytic philosophy was accompanied by the development of formal logic and many successful applications of formal methods. But analytical philosophy does not rely on formal methods alone. Elements of broadly understood informal logic and logical semiotics, procedures used in natural sciences and humanities, and various kinds of intuition also belong to the philosopher’s toolkit. Papers gathered in the book concern the opposition formality–informality as well as other pairs, such as methodology versus metaphilosophy, interdisciplinarity versus intradisciplinarity, and methodological uniformity versus diversity of sciences. Problems of the nature of logic and the explanatory role of mathematical theories are also discussed.

Although an important part of the origins of analytic philosophy can be traced back to philosophy in Austria in the first part of the twentieth century, remarkably little is known about the specific contribution made by Austrian philosophy and philosophers. In The Austrian Contribution to Analytic Philosophy, prominent analytic philosophers take a fresh look at the roots of analytic philosophy in the thought of influential but often overlooked Austrian philosophers including Brentano, Meinong, Bolzano, Husserl, and Witasek. The contributors to this volume investigate central topics in theoretical philosophy such as intentionality, consciousness, memory, attributes, and truth as well as political philosophy and aesthetics. This original collection will be of interest to anyone studying the origins of analytic philosophy as well as contemporary debates in philosophy of language, metaphysics and mind.

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.

“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 (from: “Why Polish Philosophy does Not Exist”)

Kazimierz Twardowski (1866-1938) is the founder of the Lvov-Warsaw School with its strong tradition in logic and its scientific approach to philosophy. Twardowski’s unique way of doing philosophy, his method, is of central importance for understanding his impact as a teacher. This method can be understood as a philosophical grammar, which is also how Leibniz conceived his universal language of thought. Analytic philosophy in the twentieth century can be characterized by its opposition to psychologism, on the one hand, and its opposition to metaphysics, on the other. This is changing now, as questions within the philosophy of mind and metaphysics are raised by analytic philosophers today. Maria van der Schaar shows in her book that we can improve our analytic methods by making use of Twardowski’s philosophical grammar. Twardowski’s positive attitude to psychology and metaphysics may also help us to develop an analytic metaphysics and to get a better understanding of the relation between psychology and philosophy.

Kazimierz Twardowski (20/10/1866, Vienna - 11/02/1938, Lvov) is most commonly known as the teacher of great philosophers and the founder of the Lvov-Warsaw School. As a philosopher however, he is primarily remembered for his famous comparison of the contents and objects of various kinds of representations, a comparison that remains enshrined in European thought. In fact, he attained important results in many other branches of philosophy as well. For instance, in (descriptive) ontology, he laid the foundations for the modern theory of formal structure of objects, and he introduced the theoretically fruitful pair of terms, action-product. In epistemology, he developed a profound analysis of the notion and criteria of truth; and he provided a forceful account of the errors underlying relativist theories of truth. In methodology, he drew an explicit distinction between the processes of discovering, systematising, and grounding in science, and he offered accurate descriptions of the nature of psychology and other humanities. In (philosophical) logic, he offered decisive arguments on behalf of the idiogenetic conception of judgement, and he improved the traditional typology of adjectives. These achievements are of significance that is not only historical. Kazimierz Twardowski's work, formulated in plain, precise language, are instructive and inspiring for contemporary students of philosophy.

This collection celebrates the centenary of the Lvov-Warsaw school, established by Kazimierz Twardowski in Lvov in 1895. This school belongs to analytic philosophy and successfully worked in all branches of philosophy. The Warsaw school of logic became perhaps the most important part of Twardowski's heritage. Lesniewski, Lukasiewicz and Tarski, leading Polish logicians, achieved results which essentially influenced the development of contemporary logic. A close connection of logic and philosophy was a typical feature of the Lvov-Warsaw school. The papers included in the collection 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, which was one of the sources of the Lvov-Warsaw school.

This book is a collection of articles authored by renowed Polish ontologists living and working in the early part of the 21st century. Harking back to the well-known Polish Lvov-Warsaw School, founded by Kazimierz Twardowski, we try to make our ontological considerations as systematically rigorous and clear as possible – i.e. to the greatest extent feasible, but also no more than the subject under consideration itself allows for. Hence, the papers presented here do not seek to steer clear of methods of inquiry typical of either the formal or the natural sciences: on the contrary, they use such methods wherever possible. At the same time, despite their adherence to rigorous methods, the Polish ontologists included here do not avoid traditional ontological issues, being inspired as they most certainly are by the great masters of Western philosophy – from Plato and Aristotle, through St. Thomas and Leibniz, to Husserl, to name arguably just the most important.

This book presents Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz's philosophy. Ajdukiewicz was one of the most distinguished and important philosophers of the contemporary Poland. He produced important ideas in logic, epistemology, philosophy of language, and ontology. He influenced Polish analytic philosophy very much. The collection gives a general account of Ajdukiewicz philosophy and it is the only full presentation of his ideas available in Western languages. The volume is of interest for everybody working in analytic philosophy.