Jan Hertrich-Woleński (also known as Jan Woleński; born 21 September 1940) is a
Polish philosopher
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
specializing in the history of the
Lwów–Warsaw school of logic and in
analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a broad movement within Western philosophy, especially English-speaking world, anglophone philosophy, focused on analysis as a philosophical method; clarity of prose; rigor in arguments; and making use of formal logic, mat ...
.
He has spent most of his academic career at the
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University (, UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by Casimir III the Great, King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and one of the List of oldest universities in con ...
in
Kraków
, officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...
, where he is currently Professor
Emeritus
''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus".
In some c ...
. His main fields of research are
logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...
,
epistemology
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...
, and the
history of philosophy in Poland.
Life
Jan Woleński was born in
Radom
Radom is a city in east-central Poland, located approximately south of the capital, Warsaw. It is situated on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship. Radom is the fifteenth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in its province w ...
, Poland on 21 September 1940. His first interest was
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...
and he began studies at
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University (, UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by Casimir III the Great, King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and one of the List of oldest universities in con ...
in 1958. Soon
philosophy
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
drew his attention and by 1963 he was employed in the Department of State and Law as an assistant professor. He looked to
analytical jurisprudence
Analytical jurisprudence is a philosophical approach to law that draws on the resources of modern analytical philosophy to try to understand the nature of law. It is a branch of jurisprudence, also called the philosophy of law. Since the boundari ...
in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, and with the guidance of Professor Kazimierz Opalek, in 1968, he produced his thesis. Continuing his ascent, he produced a
Habilitation
Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...
in 1972: ''Problems in the Interpretations of Law''. In 1974 he straddled two positions: the Institute of Social Sciences at the Academy of Mining and Metallurgy, and lecturer on
philosophy of science
Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. Amongst its central questions are the difference between science and non-science, the reliability of scientific theories, ...
at the Institute of Philosophy at Jagiellonian University.
[
]Wrocław University of Science and Technology
Wrocław University of Science and Technology () is a technological university in Wrocław, Poland. With buildings and infrastructures dispersed throughout the city, its main facilities are gathered at a central location near Plac Grunwaldzki ...
invited him to teach in their Institute of Social Sciences in 1979. As an opponent of the state socialism
State socialism is a political and economic ideology within the socialist movement that advocates state ownership of the means of production. This is intended either as a temporary measure, or as a characteristic of socialism in the transition ...
governing Poland, Woleński edited an underground bulletin ''Riposte''. Though he was appointed director of the Institute, he was removed after four months for his resistance activities. The journal Studia Logica
''Studia Logica'' (full name: ''Studia Logica, An International Journal for Symbolic Logic'') is a scientific journal publishing papers employing formal tools from Mathematics and Logic. The scope of papers published in Studia Logica covers all sc ...
engaged him as editor from 1987 to 1993. It was in 1988 that he gained appointment to the Institute of Philosophy at his alma mater. He became ''professor ordinarius'' in 1990 and chair of the Department of Epistemology in 1994.[
Other editing positions include ]Synthese
''Synthese'' () is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the epistemology, methodology, and philosophy of science, and related issues. The name ''Synthese'' (from the Dutch for '' synthesis'') finds its origin in the intentions of its f ...
from 1990, The Monist
''The Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of philosophy. It was established in October 1890 by American publisher Edward C. Hegeler.
History
Init ...
from 1993, ''Studies in Eastern European Thought'' from 1993, ''Axiomathes'' from 1992, and the ''Synthese Library'' of Kluwer Academic
Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing.
Originally founded in 1842 in ...
. Woleński was president of the Polish Society of Logic and Philosophy of Science (1999 to 2002). "Jan Woleński has achieved success as a teacher and advisor, encompassing the supervision of fourteen doctoral dissertations. Among his graduates are professors of philosophy as well as of law."[Artur Rojszczak & Tomas Placek (2003) Preface to ''Philosophy and Logic in Search of the Polish Tradition: Essays in Honor of Jan Woleński on the Occasion of his 60 Birthday'', edited by ]Jaakko Hintikka
Kaarlo Jaakko Juhani Hintikka (; ; 12 January 1929 – 12 August 2015) was a Finnish philosopher and logician. Hintikka is regarded as the founder of formal epistemic logic and of game semantics for logic.
Life and career
Hintikka was born in ...
, Springer
He is on the consulting board of the philosophy journal, ''Theoria
Christian mysticism is the tradition of mysticism, mystical practices and mystical theology within Christianity which "concerns the preparation f the personfor, the consciousness of, and the effect of ..a direct and transformative pr ...
''.
Institute Vienna Circle held a conference in 1997 on the Austro-Polish connections in logical empiricism
Logical positivism, also known as logical empiricism or neo-positivism, was a philosophical movement, in the empiricist tradition, that sought to formulate a scientific philosophy in which philosophical discourse would be, in the perception of ...
. Woleński described the semantic theory of truth
A semantic theory of truth is a theory of truth in the philosophy of language which holds that truth is a property of sentences.
Origin
The semantic conception of truth, which is related in different ways to both the correspondence and deflat ...
in his introductory essay, "Semantic Revolution – Rudolf Carnap, Kurt Gödel, Alfred Tarski". It was followed by a score of contributions from philosopher
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
s. Working with Eckehart Köhler, Wolenski edited the papers and the collection was published as ''Alfred Tarski and the Vienna Circle''.
In 2013 Woleński was awarded the Prize of the Foundation for Polish Science for a comprehensive analysis of the work of the Lwów-Warsaw school and for placing its achievements within the context of international discourse in contemporary philosophy.
Woleński was a plenary speaker at the second world congress on religion and logic held in Warsaw, June 18 to 22, 2017. He has continued academic involvement at the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszów
Rzeszów ( , ) is the largest city in southeastern Poland. It is located on both sides of the Wisłok River in the heartland of the Sandomierz Basin. Rzeszów is the capital of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship and the county seat, seat of Rzeszów C ...
Poland.
Personal
Woleński is active in Poland's atheist
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
movement. In the 1960s he was a member of the government-sponsored Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, and since 2007 he is a member of the Honorary Committee of the Polish Rationalist Association. He is widely recognized in Poland as an atheist and has promoted the replacement of religion classes with philosophy classes in Polish schools.
Woleński is involved in the secular Jewish movement, writing on the common Polish-Jewish past and on today's Polish-Jewish relations. He is a member of B'nai B'rith
B'nai B'rith International ( ; from ) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit Jewish service organization and was formerly a cultural association for German Jewish immigrants to the United States. B'nai B'rith states that it is committed to the se ...
and was deputy president of its Polish chapter from 2007 to 2012.
He was a member of the Polish United Workers Party (the Polish communist party) from 1965 to 1981. From 1980 to 1990 he was a member of the Solidarity (Polish trade union)
Solidarity (, ), full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity" ( , abbreviated ''NSZZ „Solidarność”''), is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland. Subsequently, it was the firs ...
movement.
Works
In English and French
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Woleński, Jan, Essays on Logic and Its Applications in Philosophy, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2011;
* Woleński, Jan, L’école de Lvov-Varsovie : Philosophie et logique en Pologne (1895-1939), Vrin, Paris 2011;
* Woleński, Jan, Historico-Philosophical Essays, v. 1, Copernicus Center Press, Kraków 2013;
* Woleński, Jan, Logic and Its Philosophy, Peter Lang, Berlin 2018;
* Woleński, Jan, Semantics and Truth, Springer Nature, Heidelberg 2019;
In Polish
* Woleński, Jan (1980). ''Z zagadnień analitycznej filozofii prawa, Quaestiones ad philosophiam analyticam iuris pertinentes'', Warsaw, PWN.
* Woleński, Jan (1985). ''Filozoficzna szkoła lwowsko-warszawska'', Warsaw, PWN.
* Woleński, Jan (1990). ''Kotarbiński'', Wiedza Powszechna, Warsaw.
* Woleński, Jan (1993). ''Metamatematyka a epistemologia'', Warsaw, PWN.
* Woleński, Jan (1996). ''W stronę logiki'', Aureus, Cracow.
* Woleński, Jan (1997). ''Szkoła Lwowsko-Warszawska w polemikach'', Warsaw, Scholar.
* Woleński, Jan (1999). ''Okolice filozofii prawa'', Cracow, Universitas.
* Woleński, Jan (2000). ''Epistemologia'', 3 volumes, Cracow, Aureus (reedited in one volume in 2005 by WN PWN, Warsaw).
* Woleński, Jan (2004). ''Granice niewiary'', Cracow, Wydawnictwo Literackie.
See also
* History of philosophy in Poland
* List of Poles
This is a partial list of notable Polish people, Polish or Polish language, Polish-speaking or -writing people. People of partial Polish heritage have their respective ancestries credited.
Physics
*Miedziak Antal
* Czesław Białobrzesk ...
References
External links
Works by Woleński
from PhilPapers
PhilPapers is an interactive academic database of journal articles in philosophy. It is maintained by the Centre for Digital Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario, and it has "394,867 registered users, including the majority of profes ...
Humanism and Rationalism
*
Short film about Woleński
made by Foundation for Polish Science
''"Czy Bóg jest potrzebny do wyjaśnienia świata?—debata między Janem Woleńskim i Jackiem Wojtysiakiem"'' ("Is God Necessary to Explain the World?–a debate between Jan Woleński and Jacek Wojtysiak")
Jagiellonian University's Holocaust Research Centre website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolenski, Jan
Atheist philosophers
Polish atheists
20th-century Polish Jews
20th-century Polish philosophers
21st-century Polish Jews
21st-century Polish people
Jewish philosophers
Jewish atheists
Analytic philosophers
1940 births
Living people
Academic staff of Jagiellonian University
Polish historians of philosophy