Tadeusz Kotarbiński

Grave of Tadeusz Kotarbinski and Janina Kotarbinska

Tadeusz Marian Kotarbiński (* 31 March 1886 in Warsaw , † 3. October 1981 ) was a Polish philosopher of the Lvov-Warsaw School , starting in the mathematical logic of logical empiricism originated. He is considered one of the most influential Polish thinkers of the second half of the 20th century.

Life

Kotarbiński grew up in a family interested in music; his father was a composer , his mother a concert pianist. After an initial interest in mathematics , physics and architecture , he decided to study philosophy and psychology in Lwów ( Lemberg ), which he completed in 1912 with a philosophical doctorate on Mill and Spencer under Kazimierz Twardowski . Jan Łukasiewicz was one of his formative academic teachers .

Kotarbiński then returned to Warsaw and began his academic career as a lecturer in classical philosophy at the University of Warsaw , while at the same time he published his first articles, gave lectures and from 1915 managed the Philosophical Institute. In 1919 he was appointed associate professor and dean of the humanities faculty in 1929. In the 1930s , Kotarbiński took an active part in Warsaw's cultural and political life, repeatedly taking a position against nationalism , clericalism and anti-Semitism , which was widespread in Poland at the time . This eventually brought him together with the left wing of the Polish Socialist Party.

Under the German occupation during the Second World War , Kotarbiński continued his teaching activities underground, which was viewed as treason by right-wing circles of the resistance . He narrowly escaped a death sentence.

After the war, Kotarbiński initially taught at the University of Łódź and was its rector from 1945 to 1949 before returning to Warsaw. There he taught philosophy and logic until his retirement in 1961 . From 1957 to 1962 he was President of the Polish Academy of Sciences , where he founded and headed the Practice for Practice . He was the only Polish philosopher to continue the tradition of the neo-positivist Lemberg-Warsaw school . Since 1965 he was a corresponding member of the British Academy .

philosophy

Kotarbiński's work can be divided into two areas, the common starting points of which are logic and epistemology , but which, in their form, refer to completely different areas of philosophy. In this he is comparable to Ludwig Wittgenstein , the most important member of the Vienna Circle .

Riceism

Based on nominalism and logical empiricism , Kotarbiński developed Reism , that is, an epistemology of denotations . In Kontarbiński, there is already an ontological and a semantic interpretation of the travelist theory.

Praxiology

Kotarbiński's draft of praxiology is that of a theory of action that considers commands, prohibitions and restrictions, requirements, mechanisms and goals of actions from the general perspective of their effectiveness. He called praxiology a practical realism , which found recognition above all in sociology , in work and economics . At the same time, Kotarbiński's praxiology takes ethical issues into account by attaching great importance to trust and reliability. In doing so, it goes beyond the goal and invalidates the often-voiced accusation that it is merely a model for modern management .

Fonts (selection in original language)

• Elementy teorii poznania, logiki formalnej i metodologii nauk . Ossolineum, Lemberg 1929
• Le réalisme radical . In: Proceedings of the 7th International Congress of Philosophy . London 1930, pp. 488-500
• Course logiki dla prawników . Gebethner & Wolff, Warsaw 1955
• Tract o dobrej robocie . PWN, Warsaw 1955
• Wykłady z dziejów logiki . Ossolineum, Lodz 1957
• The concept of action . In: Journal of Philosophy , 57/1960, pp. 201-209
• Praxiology . Pergamon Press, Oxford / New York 1965
• Reism: Issues and Prospects . In: Logique and Analyze 11/1968, pp. 441-458
• The Task and Problems of Praxiology . In: Prakseologia 31/1968, 69, pp. 7-25
• The positive and negative forms of cooperation . In: Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale 3/1970, pp. 316-325
• Determinism and fatalism in the face of activity . In: Dialectics and Humanism 2/1974, pp. 3-11

Web links

Commons : Tadeusz Kotarbiński  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Tadeusz Kotarbiński in the catalog of the German National Library
• Jan Woleński:  Reism. In: Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
• Publications by and about Tadeusz Kotarbiński at Litdok East Central Europe / Herder Institute (Marburg)