Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (12 December 1890 – 12 April 1963) was a Polish
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
and
logician
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...
, a prominent figure in the
Lwów–Warsaw school of logic. He originated many novel ideas in
semantics
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy
Philosophy (f ...
. Among these was
categorial grammar
Categorial grammar is a family of formalisms in natural language syntax that share the central assumption that syntactic constituents combine as functions and arguments. Categorial grammar posits a close relationship between the syntax and semant ...
, a highly flexible framework for the analysis of natural language syntax and (indirectly) semantics that remains a major influence on work in
formal linguistics Formal linguistics is the branch of linguistics which uses applied mathematics, applied mathematical methods for the analysis of natural languages. Such methods include formal languages, formal grammars and first-order logical expressions. Formal li ...
. Ajdukiewicz's fields of research were
model theory
In mathematical logic, model theory is the study of the relationship between formal theories (a collection of sentences in a formal language expressing statements about a mathematical structure), and their models (those structures in which the s ...
and the
philosophy of science
Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...
.
Biography
Ajdukiewicz was born in 1890 in Tarnopol in
Galicia, which at that time, due to
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...
, was annexed by
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
(
The Austrian Partition
The Austrian Partition ( pl, zabór austriacki) comprise the former territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth acquired by the Habsburg monarchy during the Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century. The three partitions were cond ...
). His father was a senior civil servant. Ajdukiewicz studied at the
University of Lwów
The University of Lviv ( uk, Львівський університет, Lvivskyi universytet; pl, Uniwersytet Lwowski; german: Universität Lemberg, briefly known as the ''Theresianum'' in the early 19th century), presently the Ivan Franko Na ...
, and lectured there, as well as in Warsaw and in Poznań. He received his PhD degree with the thesis on
Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemolo ...
's philosophy of space. He was Rector of the University of Poznań from 1948 to 1952. He was one of the founders of the journal ''
Studia Logica
''Studia Logica'' (full name: Studia Logica, An International Journal for Symbolic Logic), is a scienific journal publishing papers employing formal tools from Mathematics and Logic. The scope of papers published in Studia Logica covers all scient ...
'' in its current incarnation, editing it from 1953 to his death.
Work
In his early epistemological system, which he called Radical Conventionalism, Ajdukiewicz analyzed any
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
as a set of expressions or sentences, with inferential ''rules of meaning'' that specify the relation of one expression to another, or to external data. There are three kinds of rules: Axiomatic, Deductive, and Empirical. Following the rules, one can map all knowable sentences of a language. However, some languages' vocabularies can produce ''disconnected'' sentences, which are only partly mapped by the ''meaning rules''. Therefore, when one uses a language, even scientific one, a ''conceptual apparatus'', an untranslatable set of meanings, is needed too, and with it a choice of the problems to be settled. For this reason the theory is a form of
conventionalism
Conventionalism is the philosophical attitude that fundamental principles of a certain kind are grounded on (explicit or implicit) agreements in society, rather than on external reality. Unspoken rules play a key role in the philosophy's structure ...
, and it is radical because even simple experiential reports are exposed to these language-wide considerations. Ajdukiewicz discarded this theory as the 1930s progressed.
Bibliography
*1921 "Z metodologii nauk dedukcyjnych"
*1923 "Główne kierunki filozofii"
*1928 "Główne zasady metodologii nauk i logiki formalnej"
*1931 "O znaczeniu wyrażeń"
*1934 "Logiczne podstawy nauczania"
*1938 "Propedeutyka filozofii"
*1948 "Epistemologia i semantyka"
*1949 "Zagadnienia i kierunki filozofii"
*1952 "Zarys logiki"
*1964 "Zagadnienia empiryzmu a koncepcja znaczenia"
*1965 "Logika pragmatyczna"
*1960–1965 "Język i poznanie. Wybór pism"
*1966- Selected articles in "Logiczna Teoria Nauki" ( Logical Theory of Science) Ed. T.Pawłowski, Printed PWN, Warszawa.
*Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz: ''Pragmatic Logic'',
Dordrecht
Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the province's fifth-largest city after R ...
, Reidel, 1974
*Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz: ''Problems and Theories of Philosophy'', Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press
A university press is an academic publishing hou ...
, 1975
*Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz: ''The Scientific World-Perspective and Other essays 1931–1963'',
Dordrecht
Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the province's fifth-largest city after R ...
, Reidel, 1977
See also
*
History of philosophy in Poland
The history of philosophy in Poland parallels the evolution of philosophy in Europe in general.
Overview
Polish philosophy drew upon the broader currents of European philosophy, and in turn contributed to their growth. Some of the most momentous ...
*
Logology (science of science)
Logology is the study of all things related to science and its practitioners—philosophical, biological, psychological, societal, historical, political, institutional, financial. The term "logology" is back-formed from the suffix "-logy", as in ...
External links
Polish Philosophy Page: Kazimierz AjdukiewiczLwów–Warsaw school of logic at the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''SEP'') combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer-reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy, freely accessible to Internet users. It is maintained by Stanford University. Eac ...
. Sections on Categorial Grammar and Radical Conventionalism.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ajdukiewicz, Kazimierz
1890 births
1963 deaths
Writers from Ternopil
20th-century Polish philosophers
Philosophers of science
Polish logicians
Members of the Polish Academy of Sciences
University of Lviv alumni
University of Lviv faculty
University of Warsaw faculty