13:1:
Logic in Poland in the 20th Century
After Poland gained independence in 1918, logic developed very quickly both as a scientific direction and as a taught discipline. This introduction to the special issue "Logic in Poland in the 20th Century", published in Volume 13:1 (2024) and Volume 13:2 (2024), provides the historical context for the development of logic in the interwar period.
From the History of Lesniewski's Mereology
In this paper, we want to present the genesis of Stanisław Lesniewski's mereology. Although 'mereology' comes from theword 'part', mereology arose as a theory of collective classes. That is why we present the differences between the concepts of being a distributive class and being a collective class. Next, we present Lesniewski's original mereology from 1927, but with a modern approach. Lesniewski was inspired to create his concept of classes and their elements by Russell's antinomy. To face it, Lesniewski had to define the concept of being an element of based on the concept of being part of. Lesniewski showed that in his theory, there is no equivalent to Russell’s antinomy. We will show that his solution has nothing to do with the original approach because, in both cases, we are talking about objects of a different kind. Russell’s original antinomy concerned distributive classes, and Lesniewski's considerations concerned collective classes.
The Warsaw School of Logic: Main Pillars, Ideas, Significance
The Warsaw School of Logic (WSL) was the famous branch of the Lviv-
Warsaw School (LWS) – the most important movement in the history of Polish
philosophy. Logic made the most important field in the activities of the WSL.
The aim of this work is to highlight the role and significance of the WSL in the
history of logic in the 20th century.
100 Years of Logical Investigations at the University of Poznań
The aim of this paper is to describe the history of logical investigations at the University of Poznań. The organisational structures within the discipline as well as the outstanding logicians and their achievements are presented. Connections with the Lviv–Warsaw School are indicated.
Logic and Metalogic: a Historical Sketch
This paper briefly discusses the relations between logic and metalogic in history. Metalogic is understood as a reflection on logic in its various senses, particularly sensu stricto (formal, mathematical) and sensu largo (formal logic plus semantic plus methodology of science). It is shown that metalogic in its contemporary understanding arose after mathematical logic had become a mature discipline. Special passage is devoted to metalogic in Poland. The last part of the paper discussed so-called logocentric predicament.
Proof of the Existence of Hell: An Extension of the Stone Paradox
As shown in (Łukowski, 2013), the paradox of the stone is a failed attempt to show that "omnipotence" is a contradictory concept. An element of the argument presented there is that God, while unable to lift the stone, can nevertheless annihilate it. This work considers the amplification of the paradox of the stone to the form generated by the question: can God create a stone which He will not be able to lift, nor, once created, will He be able to destroy.
