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Logic in Poland in the Twentieth Century: An Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2015

Jan Woleński
Jan Woleński*
Affiliation:
University of Information, Technology and Management, Rzeszow, Poland. E-mail: wolenski@if.uj.edu.pl
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Abstract

A. Fraenkel and Y. Bar-Hillel in their classic Foundations of Set Theory (published in 1958) wrote ‘There is probably no country which has contributed, relatively to the size of its population, so much to mathematical logic and set theory and Poland. Leaving the explanation of this curious fact to sociology…’.1 However, the development of logic (and any other scientific field as well) in a given country, is not a linear function of the size of its population. In fact, there are several factors that conditioned the enormous development of mathematical logic and the foundations of mathematics in Poland, particularly in the years 1918–1939. The following circumstances can be taken into account as elements for a sociological explanation of this fact (curious or not, but that is another matter): the philosophical context (the rise of the Lvov-Warsaw School), the mathematical context (Polish Mathematical School and the Janiszewski program, the co-operation of philosophers and mathematicians in teaching and doing logic, the amount of logical teaching in secondary schools and universities, and several organizational enterprises (the place of logic at universities, journals, scientific societies).

Type
Focus: Logic and Philosophy in Poland
Information
European Review , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , February 2015 , pp. 99 - 104
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2015 

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References

1.Fraenkel, A. and Bar-Hillel, Y. (1958) Foundations of Set Theory (Amsterdam, North-Holland).Google Scholar
2.Scholz, H. (1931) Abriss der Geschichte der Logic (Berlin: Junker and Dünnhaupt).Google Scholar
3.Jordan, Z. (1945) The Development of Mathematical Logic and of Logical Positivism in Poland between Two Wars (Oxford: Clarendon Press); reprinted in S. McCall (ed.) (1967) Polish Logic 1920–1939 (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
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5.Woleński, J. (1989) Logic and Philosophy in the Lvov-Warsaw School (Dordrecht: Kluwer).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6.Woleński, J. (1995) Mathematical logic in Poland 1900–1939: people, circles, institutions, ideas. Modern Logic, 5, 363–405; reprinted in J. Woleński (1999) Essays in the History of Logic and Logical Philosophy (Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press), pp. 59–84.Google Scholar
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